


Broken Heart Syndrome

by birdn4t0r



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Ableist Language, Aftermath, Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Amnesia, Anger, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Backstory, Bad Ideas, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Character Development, Child Neglect, Confusing, Confusion, Constructed Reality, Coping, Crying, Dark, Despair, Developing Friendships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Escape, Eventual Happy Ending, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Is Alive, Everyone Needs A Hug, Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, Explicit Language, False Memories, Fix-It of Sorts, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Forgiveness, Future Foundation (Dangan Ronpa), Gen, Guilt, Hatred, Headcanon, Healing, Homesickness, Homophobic Language, Human Experimentation, Human Sacrifice, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Insanity, Internal Conflict, Kidnapping, Loneliness, Magic, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mental Health Issues, Mindfuck, Near Death Experiences, New Dangan Ronpa V3 Spoilers, Nobody is Dead, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Plot, Plot Twists, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Presumed Dead, Psychological Trauma, Rage, Reality TV, Recovery, Regret, Remnants of Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Resentment, Science Fiction, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Semi-Canonical Character, Sleepwalking, Slow Burn, Some Humor, Spoilers, Suicide Attempt, Tags Contain Spoilers, Tags May Change, Temporary Amnesia, To Be Edited, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use, Underage Smoking, Unethical Experimentation, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Virtual Reality, Weird Plot Shit, What-If
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-07-10 01:30:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 43,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15938981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdn4t0r/pseuds/birdn4t0r
Summary: Broken Heart Syndrome is a temporary heart condition where a perfectly healthy person's heart stops due to a sudden spike in adrenaline levels. This condition often occurs in the event of a great stressor, such as the death of a loved one.Or, in this case, your own "death."Tags contain content in future chapters, language warning for Miu and Kaito.





	1. The End...?

Broken Heart Syndrome: a temporary heart condition that is often brought on by stressful situations, such as the death of a loved one.

* * *

The last thing that Shuichi remembered was falling through the ground after leaving the grounds of the academy. It was a strange experience, to simply fall through the ground, as that's not usually a thing that happens in real life.

  _In real life_...But what was reality? As he fell into apparent nothingness, Shuichi remembered Ouma-kun's words, that although there were many lies, there was only a single truth. A single truth that more often than not would turn out to be quite terrible. It then occurred to him that the reason that he was falling into a pit of nothingness was that he had been killed by stray debris caused by K1-B0's destruction of the school. He found it somewhat surreal that sixteen students had so quickly been reduced to five in a matter of weeks. His vision was blurring as the light of the sunset where he had fallen grew smaller and smaller, giving him a sense of detachedness to the world he was in. Knowing that his grip on this world was fading, he wondered if he would be able to see any of his friends who had died again as he was disconnected. 

The first thing that Shuichi became consciously aware of was a familiar, yet unfamiliar feeling in the air around him, and a strange feeling that something was on his face where he lay. Wait. _Lay?_ Like lying down? Was this how the spirits of the dead moved on to the afterlife? Or was he somehow getting physical sensation from his corpse? Becoming yet more aware of his physical self, he noted that his entire body felt quite weak. _What..._

Deciding that this wonder was an unnecessary mystery, he opened his eyes and was instantly blinded by a light that, although not actually very bright, made his eyes water and forced him to squint nonetheless. After his eyes had adjusted somewhat, he sat up and noticed that he was in a room with sixteen beds lined up in it, with one half of the beds on either side. There were very few other features in this room besides the beds, each with only a bare nightstand on the left and a power outlet on the right. Of the sixteen beds, he observed that only four others were occupied at the time. He found this fact perplexing, too dazed by the sudden light exposure and confusion for any of this information to be processed. He removed the strange helmet that he had been wearing, noticing that he was still wearing a school uniform.

What was this? He cursed the inexplicable weakness in his body, and against his better judgement attempted to stand and leave the bed in order to explore the area and see what was going on.

"Urgh!" he groaned, using the nightstand to balance as he learned the hard way that his trembling legs had difficulty supporting his weight. This weakness was inexplicable. What had happened? The last thing he remembered was falling into nothingness below the Academy, and now he had awakened weak and disoriented. Was this...muscular atrophy? But...how? He pondered this concept for a little bit, using the nightstand to ease his weight onto his legs, which were now little more than skin and bones. Muscular atrophy only happens when muscles aren't used for a long time.

And then, all the pieces fell into place. The helmet. The beds. His eyes not being adjusted to light. Falling through the ground the moment he stepped foot off the school grounds. Hell, the pink blood as well. The Ultimate Detective fell back onto the bed at this relevation.

There were many lies, but not even Ultimate Supreme Leader Komichi Ouma could pull off a lie so bizarre as this truth.


	2. Nobody Loves You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just because the killing game wasn't real doesn't mean that they're out of the woods yet! The fun Monokuma has planned has only just begun, and this time, it's all real.

Shuichi didn't think that the sight he saw before him could have been real; fifteen emaciated humans and one robot had been collected and sat down in a large room with a crystal dome ceiling. Every single one of them was alive. Gokuhara-kun. Momota-kun. _Kaede-chan_. However, Shuichi noticed that the students that had "died" in Gifted Inmates Academy wore hospital bracelets, with those who had "died" more recently still attached to IVs; he figured that the shock from truly believing that they had died the way they did had caused harm to their real bodies. Real. Reality. Shuichi was still reeling from the fact that the past two weeks had been a simulation. A long nightmare. How vivid this nightmare was, and to think that he might  have been inducted into this nightmare voluntarily...it was a sickening thought to him, now. Even in this moment, Shuichi couldn't help but wonder if this, too, was just another simulation; if the Killing Game had been real and the students who stood before him were just AIs.

He pushed this thought out of his mind. He didn't even know the last time that he'd had food or water, and this line of thought was making his head hurt more than it already had. Everyone, even Kiibo, seemed too exhausted to talk, anyway, making it even more likely that this was real. He wondered how he'd been kept alive in that room; he didn't notice any signs of being hooked up to anything, but it was possible that he was fed using a feeding tube during the simulation. But what possible reason could the people who'd done this have? Well, creating an elaborate simulation would definitely be much cheaper than actually building a new school building for every season of Danganronpa. Danganronpa LIII. And in the fragments of memories that he had, he knew there may not have been enough "Earth" or resources left to really create a whole school.

When he heard the familiar bells ringing, he and the other fifteen students insinctively looked towards a large screen by the entrance of the crystal dome to be greeted by a _sickeningly_ familiar face.

"Rise and shine, Ursine! Aw, you guys look kinda tired and miserable. Guess realizing your entire life is a lie really takes a toll! Upupupupupu!" he cackled. The students didn't appreciate the black-and-white bear's humor. "So I guess you're all wondering: what's going on? How am I alive? What is happening? Who am I? Well, I have all the answers right here, if you'll meet me...ah, let's say in Suite 666! You guys could use some exercise!" The reviled bear cackled more, revelling in the thought of the building have no elevators.

"You've probably realized by now that nothing about the Gifted Inmates Academy was real, but surprise suprise! You've got a _real_ version of the Monopad in your bags that you can use to figure out the layout of the building! Isn't this so exciting? I recommend taking a look-see at the rules, too, cuz they've changed now that we're in the real world! So...Upupupupu! Goodbye! Bear well!" And the screen flicked off, the becoming silent once again, this time tinged with a sense of unease.

...

Momota-kun was the first to break the awkward silence. He coughed, but unlike in the simulation, there was no blood involved. "Well, shit." His voice was soft and hoarse, like it hadn't been used in months, and it probably hadn't. Not in the real world, anyway. "I don't know what to say."

"Oh, come on, guys! Isn't anyone else glad they're not actually dead?" Ouma-kun jumped up, presumably to commemorate being alive, but immediately tottered and plopped back on the couch, his head flopped over the back of the couch with a dazed look on his face. "Oh. Bad idea. 0/10 would not recommend. At least it wasn't boring."

"Ouma!" Momota-kun shouted, glaring at Ouma-kun. "Take this seriously! Does anyone here even have any idea what Monokuma could be plotting for in Suite...666? See, even the number is spooky!"

"I think..." Shinguji-kun's soft voice had a hoarse quality to it. "That the most logical course of ac--"

"Nobody cares what you think, you actual nutcase!" The students who'd been killed before Shinguji-kun's trial had no idea what had come to pass involving him.

"Did I...miss something?" asked Kaede-chan. "He's creepy, but...what???"

"Yeah...I think some of us are a little...lost." Amami-kun added, rubbing his head.

Shuichi took it upon himself to explain. "Yeah, so uh, so...Shinguji-kun tried to send Yonaga-san and Chabashira-san to his sister."

"So that's what he was doing with the boards? And the saw? Atua...Atua doesn't like that at all." Yonaga-san looked intrigued, yet disgusted.

"Yeah, that's creepy as heck, but remember! It didn't actually happen! Nishinishi! So it's all fine--"

"NO IT'S NOT YOU DEGENERATE MALE! WHAT THE FUCK?! HOW DID HE GET ME???!?!?" Chabashira-san exclaimed, flipping Ouma on his back and consequently ripping his IV out of his arm. "I was under a cage! But...I did feel a sharp pain in my neck before everything went black...STILL! YOU'RE BOTH _MEN_ ACES TO SOCIETY!" Shuichi felt that she'd recovered rather quickly, as she stood steady on her feet and was able to toss Ouma-kun over her shoulder, just like that.

"Hey! Stop fighting! We need to work together, remember?" Kiibo injected.

"Yeah! We need to work together! After all, we just can't know what Monokuma's gonna throw at us...so we need to work together." Kaede-chan shook her head. "Yeesh, I die and the whole group falls apart."

"Which brings the question...where is Suite 666, anyway?" Shuichi inquired, which prompted all but Ouma-kun, who was putting his IV back in his arm, to check their Monopads.

"Nyeh...is there an elevator in this building?" Yumeno-chan whined flatly. She seemed quite tired.

"It doesn't look like it. Of course that son of a bitch teddy bear would do something like this! I mean, seriously!" Iruma-san groaned. "It's on the top floor, and the Monopad says...this is the first floor! Uggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh."

"Oh yeah, while you guys were dead, you missed Shirogane being the Mastermind behind this." Harukawa-san said casually.

"THAT'S NOT THE KIND OF THING YOU SAY SO CASUALLY!!!!" shouted Chabashira-san, running over and shaking Harukawa-san in her seat.

"...This is probably the worst thing to say in this situation, but shouldn't we not be fighting and go up to Monokuma?" Shuichi inquired nervously. He could swear that someone was going to faint from all the fighting.

"Oh. Right. But after, I'm gonna have some questions!"

And with that, the group walked silently out of what Shuichi thought to be the common room, through the hallway to the stairwell. It took two flights of stairs to reach the next floor, meaning that in order to reach their destination, the group would have to climb twelve flights of stairs. Shuichi also noticed that each room had a suite number, and that the hallways curved around the central common room in a perfect circle. He noted that according to the Monopad, the building layout was arranged so that in order to travel between multiple floors, they would have to walk all the way around the building after climbing the stairs to get to the next stairwell; there was no continuous stairwell. This was not an intuitively-designed building.

This was going to be a long trip.

* * *

 "Who. The. Fuck. Designed. This. Building?!!" Iruma-san groaned as the group finally reached the top floor. "Suite 666 better not be another trip around the fucking building!"

"Uh...Gonta have some bad news...about that."

"SHIROGANE YOU OTAKU SKANK!"

"I've...told you for...the fifth time..." Shirogane responded, panting. "I'm not...the one...who...designed this. I didn't even know...the school was...a simulation."

The group had grown very tired, their legs aching more and more with each flight of stairs they climbed, with each circumnavigation of the building. However, despite being far from being in shape, Momota-kun didn't seem too affected by it.

"Hey!" he shouted, breathing heavily. "Sure beats! The killing game!"

"Yeah!" exclaimed Kaede-chan. "That's! The spirit!"

"That was a lot of stairs," a deep voice concluded. Hoshi-kun. Despite his small stature, the climb didn't affect him very much, which Shuichi supposed was due to the fact he was the Ultimate Tennis Player. Gokuhara-kun was carrying Amami-kun in his arm, who'd fallen over at the third flight of stairs. But finally, after passing exactly 66 more offices on the sixth floor, they reached the suite that Monokuma had requested they meet him at.

"Yeesh, you brats sure whine a lot. Wouldn't you corny wackos be more glad that that game wasn't real? I mean, I'm not! Upupupu!" the bear chortled, greeting them as they all filed into the room. "So you all probably have a lot of questions! 'Didn't I get my brains squished out?' 'Didn't I get boiled alive?' 'Is my life a lie?' Well...Too bad! You've gotta figure that out yourself, because not a single one of you knows the truth! Upupupupu!"

They all stared blankly at him. "Yeesh, I thought that'd get at least one snarky remark from you psychopaths. Well, I'll tell you this, cuz your blank stares are kinda scaring me and I think that we could all use a liiiiiiiiittle bit more despair here. So here it is, the truth, and nothing but the truth in the shortest, most succinct way possible: Some of you bastards actually _wanted_ to be here, and we decided to force everyone else to join the fun!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hehehe so I managed to write this and I quite like how it turned out ^^ Stay tuned!


	3. Bored to Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Besides group having a new, slightly-less-deadly but equally distressing mystery on their hands, and having no foundation upon which they can base their reality, the Gifted Inmates are still trapped in an unfamiliar place by Monokuma, who is still throwing hurdles their way. But this particular hurdle is one jumped by normal students; . But then again, normal students don't generally have to deal with memories of their friends bodies whenever someone throws an apple core.
> 
> But perhaps, this hurdle could lead to some clues...

The group was shocked. Up until that point, every single one of the sixteen students in the room had believed they knew the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Shuichi knew that this called everything that any of them had learned or experienced into question. How much of their memories were real, and how much was fake? He knew that since the technology to erase fabricate memories existed, that it was possible that there was almost _nobody_ who knew the truth. The thought was unsettling to him. As a detective, his goal was to uncover the truth. And as the Ultimate Detective -- as he believed he was -- would it not make sense that he should attempt to uncover the Ultimate Truth, then? Shuichi initially ruled out the possibility of attempting to obtain information from Monokuma; it was possible that even _he_ didn't actually know what the truth was, and even if he did, it was likely that he'd just make them figure it out for themselves. However...at that point, with no knowledge of what the truth actually was, anything, even a false lead, could be a valuable tool in discovering the truth. So, going against all the voices of better judgement in his mind, he asked:

"Monokuma, what do you mean by that?"

"Yeesh, I just told you guys. Some of you bastards forced a bunch of your fellow classmates to play a killing game that they thought was real. Time to figure out who! Upupupupu!" And with that, Monokuma left. That was a little useless. But he supposed that anything, even "Upupupupu!" would be useful when you have literally nothing, not even your own memories, to go on.

"Dumbass, did you really think that would get you anywhere?" Iruma-chan scolded, rudely. "He might not even know shit!"

"I mean, even a vague answer like that is something. And what he doesn't know is just as useful to us as what he does know." Shuichi reasoned, knowing that this was probably completely useless in satiating the sailor-tongued Iruma-chan.

"Pardon me for interrupting, but I believe that the most logical course of action to take from this point would be to go to the dining hall and get something to eat." Kiibo advised. "If Monokuma is telling the truth, and regrettably, we do not have the luxury of questioning what he says. We are in the real world now, so if anyone were to die now due to self-neglect, they would actually be dead."

"Uh, Kiibo, do you really think it'd be a good idea to eat real food in this state? I mean, I'm _literally_ starving and all, but we literally haven't eaten actual food in uh...months. How we even got up all those stairs is beyond me." Amami-kun refuted, looking to the side.

"Ah, that is true. It would be best for you to start back on a liquid diet in order to ease back into eating properly."

"Well, that settles it. Protein shakes for everyone! Come on! You can do anything if you try hard enough!" Momota-kun hopped up and clapped his hands. However, Shuichi noticed that the killing game had taken its toll, even on the determined Momota-kun.

"What I'm wondering is...did I ever even have a sister?" Shinguji-kun pondered, talking to himself.

Even the kind-hearted Gokuhara-kun thought it appropriate to raise an eyebrow at Shinguji-kun. "Hmm...Gonta don't like that."

After Gokuhara-kun, Kiibo, and Momota-kun wound up quite literally carrying everyone else down to the first floor, where the room that they had met in that turned out to be the dining hall was located.

"Chocolate, or vanilla?" Toujo-chan asked, dropping some conveniently-located protein shakes from a not-so-conveniently high cupboard. They hit the counter with a thunk. The shakes came in six-packs, with packaging that, although not normally something that is thought twice about, proved to be very inconvenient considering that at this point, the toll that what was essentially (and literally, for most) a coma had taken on their bodies were in full effect. Thus, Toujo-chan was forcibly relieved of her maid duties by Kiibo, who broke the packaging and opened the shakes, which he handed out. Of course, she did not go down without a fight, which entirely consisted of Kiibo gently taking her hand, despite her resistance, and leading her to the couch, where she collapsed.

"I am now forcing you to take a break."

"So...everything we thought we knew was a lie. That's fun." Hoshi-kun commented, fiddling with his hat.

"Shame that wasn't actually real though, I hate the 'death is cheap' trope." Shirogane mused. Shuichi would have hit her, had he'd been up for it. Momota threw the bottle cap at her.

"I swear to God, I am going to physically harm you."

As he drank the vanilla protein shake, which tasted about as good as protein shakes usually do, he noted that there'd been a notable silence among the group. He figured that it was likely because not only were they probably somewhere very close to straight up dropping dead then and there, but their entire ability to know truth from lie had been completely shattered in just the past several hours.

"Ah, but wait!" Yonaga-chan piped up, putting her hands in the prayer position. "One should always remember to thank Atua at each and every meal! Thank you for the protein shakes, Atua."

At least Yonaga-chan was able to find something to find comfort in, he supposed.

* * *

"Hmmm. So we don't seem to have been forced into another killing game. Yet." Shuichi mused, more to himself than anyone else. Several days had passed, and the group of students was recovering relatively well. They had regained enough strength to begin to function with some semblance of normalcy again such that they were able to hold active conversations again.

"At lease, I sure hope not. I'd use Neo-Aikido on Monokuma if that were true!" Chabashira-chan threw her apple core into the trash can so hard that the core splattered into it. The sound that it made brought images from the killing game to the front of Shuichi's mind. He had to remind himself that it wasn't real, however real it had felt. And smelled. And sounded...the smell of iron and flesh really never leaves one's mind.

"Ding dong, bing bong!" Monokuma's voice commanded all of their attention. Shuichi hated how much control over their lives--and their minds--that that damn bear had. He sometimes felt that no matter what he did, or what anybody did, for that matter, that obnoxious, squeaky-voiced robot teddy bear would somehow win. "I have an announcement to make!"

"I sWEAR TO GOD, IF THERE IS EVEN SUCH A THING AS A 'GOD' THAT IF THIS IS ANOTHER KILLING GAME--" Momota-kun started, standing up in rage.

"No no no! That part's all done! The viewers are watching the new season now, run by my darling cubs~"

"Nyeh...Didn't you kill them?" Yumeno-chan asked, looking at him.

"...Didn't I tell you it was a simulation? Even simulation me thought it was real, meaning that I get to feel all types of despair all over again~"

"Cut to the chase, asshole. What the hell do you want?!" Momota-kun shouted.

"Yes. Gonta would like to know, too."

"Yeah. I'm still kinda lost." Kaede added.

"Congratulations on still being alive! Because you guys recovered so well, I'm going to give you a little reward! Here you go!" Monokuma threw a history textbook at them, which nobody caught.

"What the hell's this for?" Chabashira-chan snarled, glaring at the annoying teddy bear.

"For some background on the real world, of course! Better get studying, because I'll be quizzing you on this in three days!"

"Three days?! That's not enough time to prepare for a test--" Kaede-chan started.

"Wait." Harukawa-chan interrupted. "What is this quiz?"

"Remember how I said you were all students? Well, that means you all still have to do school things, like studying and taking boooring tests!"

"Are you gonna kill us if we fail? Because tests are really boring all alone like that." Ouma-kun asked.

"Not unless you can literally die of boredom! And there's no real-world despair better than to inflict upon oneself than mind-dulling boredom! Upupupu! Besides..." The two-toned bear paused, smiling menacingly.

"You messed up my killing game. The punishment...is something that would make you _prefer_ the killing game! Upupupupu! If you fail, you will have to push a toy car back and forth across a 10cm space exactly 807 times. And if you mess up in any way...you'll have to do it all over again!"

"...That _is_ worse than dying...and I'm speaking from experience, here." Ouma-kun said, horrified, which earned him a good punch from Momota-kun, and glares from everyone else.

"Anyway, better read up, or I'll _bore_ you to death! Upupupupupu!" And with that, he left again.

"...Somehow I feel like that's got a double meaning." Kaede-chan commented. "There's only one textbook, though..." This gave her an idea.

"We could do study groups! Let's go!"

Even though it was a good idea, the familiar theme of cooperation in the conversation made Shuichi...uneasy. Like something very bad was going to happen. But he shook that out of his mind; it was just a history test. They were taking an examination, just like any normal student.

And besides, this history textbook may give him some clues about what the truth is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like i'm starting to fall into a trap of not knowing how to introduce stuff in my plot. at least i have it sorta planned out already. it'll be ok. kihihihi! this is kinda short, i feel bad...


	4. Schadenfreude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kiibo doesn't understand why Shirogane-chan lied about what knowing of the outside world. It certainly wasn't made to endear her to the others. When he behaves in a manner contrary to his personality and the script in his AI that is supposed to keep him in compliance with the Laws of Robotics, almost everyone is confused, including him.
> 
> Almost.

Kiibo, being a robot, was able to easily commit all of the information in the textbook to his memory bank. This was not so for some of the others. For instance, Ouma-kun had become so bored from cramming that he began harassing Kiibo about how "boredom must be what his life is truly like." Such robophobic remarks annoyed him. Kiibo wondered if Ouma-kun had ever studied in his entire life, as he certainly possessed an odd form of discipline. In fact, Kiibo would say that his life was not really that boring. Actually, in that moment, it was quite stressful, considering that he did not know just how much of what he possessed in his memory bank was true, and how much was a simple falsehood. The memories that he _was_ able to ascertain were part of what he had experienced, real or not, started with the killing game, briefly paused when his personality was erased within the game, and restarted upon his reintroduction to reality. But this was besides the point. Kiibo was one of only four students who was able to pass Monokuma's nightmarishly difficult solo history test, the others being Saihara-kun, Shinguji-kun, and Shirogane-chan. The Detective, the Anthropologist, and the Cosplayer who maintained a connection to the real world. Kiibo knew that she knew that it was all a simulation, because her death did not result in her heart stopping from stress, a piece of information concerning the physical bodies of his friends that he felt was better not to share in order to spare them the stress. Shirogane-chan clearly told them that she thought the killing game was real for a reason, and Kiibo, although not understanding why she would want to further demonise herself to the others considering what she'd done to them, kept his mouth shut on the matter.

"They seem to be taking quite a while." Saihara-kun mused, to no one in particular.

"According to my calculations," Kiibo started. "It should take them about 20 more minutes to finish the task Monokuma prepared for them, provided that none of them had messed up." It had already been about two hours, and Kiibo didn't want to say that if nobody had messed up that they should have been out after twenty minutes. It was probably obvious, anyway. Their attention turned to the sound of the automatic doors opening, and surprisingly, the person that Kiibo had thought, totally not out of spite, would take the longest at Monokuma's attempt to bore them to death dragged himself out. Kiibo found Ouma-kun's bored face rather amusing; he supposed that this was the concept of schadenfreude, as finding Ouma-kun being minorly inconvenienced funny is the definition of the concept. He found it so funny, in fact, that he couldn't help but to crack a smile. This smile evolved into laughter when Ouma-kun stared up at him, blankly, too mentally exhausted by sheer boredom to say anything. And to add insult to Ouma-kun's minor inconvenience, everyone else was laughing at his overly dramatic display as well.

"It's not funny!" Ouma-kun finally exclaimed, immediately standing up and fake crying. "You-you're all so meeeeeeaaaaaaaan!"

"I'm sorry, but--" Shirogane giggled a little more. "--you're being so dramatic about it, you'd think that we hadn't just been in a killing game!" This caused Saihara-kun and Kiibo to stop laughing. That was a traumatic experience for all of them, except for her. It was _not_ something to laugh about. However, Shinguji-kun, being...strange...continued to snicker.

"Okay, then you shouldn't be mad when I stick woopie cushions on your chair! Nishinishi!" Ouma-kun immediately retorted, smiling mischievously, which made Saihara-kun chuckle, considering the circumstances. However, Kiibo, being a frequent victim of childish pranks such as these, felt that this was not that funny. Why did Ouma-kun find it so funny, anyway? Kiibo couldn't even _do_ that. Actually...that may have been the reasoning behind it. And even though Shirogane-chan had put him through the killing game, Kiibo felt that justice had to be done through more than just woopie cushions. Such as dumping out her private manga collection into the dining hall from the sixth floor. Kiibo was _definitely_ not planning how he could get away with such a thing. Definitely not. He would _never_ do such a thing to the person who had tormented them for the past several months. Noooooope.

He thought this as he poured out Shirogane-chan's pornographic manga into the dining hall while dressed in Ouma-kun's clothing, while everyone but Ouma-kun sat below. Then he ran away, Ouma-style. Perhaps Chabashira-chan would forgive him, considering that Shirogane-san had made them play the killing game.

"Kiibo, that's really unlike you!" Kiibo's uncharacteristic antics was very quickly found out by the Ultimate detective, who was chiding him. Kiibo didn't quite know how to respond to this. He knew that it was true, but he'd gotten carried away in...some manner. He blushed. He honestly wasn't sure what exactly was going through his mind, no matter how often he checked the logs. It all just felt...so dreamlike. He _was_ programmed to "dream" as a part of his learning AI, and it felt so much like that. Kiibo didn't know what had possessed him.

"Nishinishi, well, Kiiboy _did_ say he's a learning AI! So I must have taught him things! I mean, he even tried to blame me!" Ouma-kun chuckled. Kiibo resented the possibility that such a thing was likely to be true. This gremlin, who constantly makes robophobic remarks...had influenced him. It made sense, considering he'd been imprisoned with this purple-haired gremlin for a number of months. He had started to assimilate to those around him, just as flesh-and-blood humans do. But even though he considered Ouma-kun his friend, he still hated it. He looked to the ground and suddenly blushed profusely when he saw that one of Shirogane's manga had fallen open.

"Hey, Kiibo, what's wron--" Saihara-kun was then forever cursed by the contents of Shirogane's private manga collection. "Oh. Well...this is why we don't dump ero manga on the ground." Saihara-kun was blushing quite a lot after seeing that.

...

Some miles away, a professor stared into a computer screen that was remotely accessing Kiibo's memory logs, observing Kiibo's video feed.

> Week 2, Day 4 - Reality Phase
> 
> Disregard for the Laws of Robotics continue to be observed in Subject K1-B0, the "Ultimate Robot".

The professor shook his head. It seemed that his programming had proven to be too successful in creating a true Artificial Intelligence. Truly, he had created the Ultimate Robot. An AI so powerful that it disregarded all of its programmed safety features easily.

The professor smiled. But perhaps, given the progress that had been made, his child may no longer need them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a very serious author writing a very serious story. I promise that this chapter wasn't filler! It's relevant to the plot! I made some of it funny but still! Please bear with me, it'll come into play later. I feel so self-conscious about this chapter, oof. Kiibo's POV this time! I'm sorry it's so short;;


	5. Code Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kiibo's been acting weird all day. He seems to know something the others don't. By the time Shuichi and Kaede coordinated, as well as the unplanned presence of a third, Kokichi's already on the case and sees something that confirms his suspicions.

"I'm going to address the elephant in the room here." Ouma-kun announced, walking in while wearing a detective hat. He paced at the head of the table at which they were sitting, his shoes clicking on the tiled floor. "Some of us," he started, turning around and raising his finger to to the group sitting at the table. It seemed that their attempts to eat a peaceful meal had been in vain. "Forced the others to play the killing game."

"But how do you know that they knew there would be the killing game, anyway?" Momota-kun inquired, standing at his spot at the table. "And why are you bringing this up now?!"

"Sounds like something a guilty man would say. Are you hiding something? What kind of person are you, to justify subjecting complete strangers to that nightmare?"

Momota-kun slammed the table, causing the items on it to bounce from the vibration. "HOW _DARE_ YOU?!"

"It is true that the people who brought this on may have only known that it would be a Virtual Reality experience. It was possible that they would not have known that their memories would be erased or that they would believe it was reality." Toujo-san interrupted. "We should not be throwing such accusations around so easily when we have no way of knowing the circumstances behind their choice."

"Nyeh...Why can't Ouma-kun bring this up at literally any other time?" Yumeno-chan fiddled with her fork.

"Unless _he's_ the one responsible for it and wants to try to pin it all on us!" Iruma-san shouted, pointing at Ouma-kun. And with Iruma-chan's inquiry, several others began talking over each other.

"Yeah, how _do_ we know?"

"That's a good question, you _men_ ace!"

"That _does_ sound like something he'd do."

" _WAIT_!" The room fell silent as Shuichi stood and banged the table. "Calm down! We don't have enough evidence to be throwing these accusations around yet!"

"Well, the obvious answer is Shirogane-chan anyway, so I don't know why there's so much commotion about this!" Ouma-kun's cheerful tone was unsettling. Well, it was likely to be Shirogane-san, as she was the one who knew that the game had been fiction. Kaede knew only what she'd been told, but somehow, something didn't sit right with her about Shirogane-san being the sole culprit behind everything. It was probable that she was in on it, being the mastermind, but...

"And...even if Shirogane-chan is a culprit, which is probably pretty likely, based on what I know..." Kaede started. "What Monokuma said implied that there were a number of us who were here voluntarily, even if Shirogane-chan was the only one to remember that it wasn't real."

"Uh...Kaede-chan? Not to be rude or anything, but isn't the aim here to diffuse the conflict in the room?" Shuichi-kum asked, nervously.

"Yeah, but as long as we don't know what's going on, it's always going to be hanging over our heads like a dark cloud." Kaede replied, looking at Shuichi.

"Kukuku...and besides that, we don't even know if Monokuma was telling the truth." Shinguuji-kun added, gesturing at the others.

"Also...we all know now that we can't blindly take what Monokuma says as fact. We can't even trust our own memories." Harukawa-san continued, adding to Shinguji-kun's words.

"So we can't really draw any conclusions until we know more. And considering that it's obvious that we can't always take what Monokuma says as fact, we may have to go off of what we find by ourselves." Shuichi-kun concluded, sitting back down.

"Have any of you considered asking Shirogane-chan?" Kiibo interjected. "It would appear that she would know the most about this due to her memories being the most intact of all of us."

"Hey! I already said that I didn't know it was a simulation! I thought it was real!" she rebuked, shouting at Kiibo. "I'm just as lost here as the rest of you guys!" Kiibo looked like he was going to say something, but didn't. It wasn't like Kiibo to keep information a secret. He was acting quite strange.. 

"That's the biggest crock of bullshit I've ever heard!" Iruma-san laughed, pointing at Shirogane. "If you knew everything was fiction, then you could have also known that it was just a simulation!" The room seemed like it would explode into random accusations when Gokuhara-kun shouted.

"Hey!" Everyone looked at him. He didn't usually raise his voice unless he was talking about bugs, or protecting them. "Gonta no like to raise voice, but...Gonta no think we get anywhere like this! Must work together to find truth!"

"Atua agrees!" Yonaga-chan added cheerfully.

"That's right! We're not going to get anywhere unless we put all our heads together to find out the truth, whatever that is! So I think we should just eat right now, and investigate either! This isn't a class trial!" Kaede said in an attempt to keep the group at least somewhat together. After all, she swore they'd all remain friends after escaping! She was going to keep her word, no matter what!

"Fine. You guys are meeeeeeeean." Ouma-kun groaned, sitting back in his chair. He picked up the fork and stabbed his food, picking up the entire piece and turning it upside down on top of the fork before taking a bite. Well, at least he wasn't playing with his food. The subject was changed and replaced with talk of Isacc Asimov, but Kaede continued to wonder what Kiibo was going to say.

It ate at her all night. What was he going to say back there, but decided not to? What was he trying to prevent? What did he know about Shirogane-san that the others didn't? And more importantly, why was he protecting her...She thought back to earlier that day, when he dumped Shirogane-chan's erotic manga into the dining hall while dressed as Ouma. What was he trying to achieve? It was _extremely_ obvious that it was Kiibo, but at the same time, it was _extremely_ out-of-character, especially for someone like Kiibo. Could it have been revenge for the killing game...? Possibly, but it was still so out-of-character for him that Kaede didn't know what was going on. What did he know? She continued to muse on Kibo's irregular behavior for a while, and spoke much less than usual. The others didn't notice too much due to her previous absence. She probably knew Kiibo the least well of any of them, to be honest. But it was still strange. He was usually so serious...

Her musing was interrupted. "Kaede-chan, is something bothering you?" She looked up from her thoughts to see Shuichi-kun looking back at her, his eyebrows turned up.

"It's nothing much," she said, like a liar. "Just...uh..."

"Yeah?" Shuichi scratched his head. She was probably worried that he wouldn't trust her after the incident with Amami-kun. "I'm listening."

"It's just that...when everyone was arguing back there, there was something I noticed about Kiibo. Do you...trust me enough to believe me if I told you?"

"Yeah, of course." Shuichi sat down next to her, sitting straight up and facing her.

"Okay. I'll tell you. Do you think Kiibo's been acting kind of...weird...lately?" she asked, returning his attentiveness. She seemed like she wanted to make things right.

Shuichi thought about it for a little bit. He had been acting fairly strange, especially that day, but Shuichi also remembered him exhibiting odd behavior, ever since they'd all regained consciousness. "Yeah, actually. He's been acting really weird, especially today, but he's been acting a little weird ever since everyone regained consciousness, actually. Do you think he might know something?"

Kaede eyes lighted up a little, knowing that they were probably on the same page. "Yeah, actually. And when everyone was arguing back there...there was a point, after Shirogane-san defended herself that he looked like he wanted to say something."

"So it wasn't just me who saw that back there...It definitely seems like he knows something."

"Do you think we should investigate a little more into this, or could it just be a red herring? You're the Ultimate Detective."

"I think..." Shuichi looked pensive. He knew that Kiibo probably had something important to say, and shouldn't have held any loyalty to Shirogane-san after that last trial. It would probably make him really uncomfortable to press him on it, but at the same time, considering how little information they had, it was extremely suspicious of Kiibo to be hiding information that was probably important, especially in this situation, where any information would have been valuable. "I think we have to consider all possibilities. Kiibo isn't the type of person to do things under orders, as he literally broke all of the Laws of Robotics back in the killing game. He's unlikely to be in league with Shirogane-san, but it is possible."

"I agree with that notion. It is important to consider all possibilities." The two of them jumped at the sound of the voice, quickly turning to look at the person who had just spoke. It was Shinguji-kun, who was leaning on the back of the couch.

"Eek! How long...have you...been standing there?!!" Kaede-chan shrieked, nearly falling off of the couch as she jerked back.

"Kukuku...Just for a few minutes."

"Sh--" Shuichi started, likely to tell off Shinguji, but he was cut off before he had even finished his thought in his own head.

"Kukuku...it's okay. You have every right to be suspicious of me, especially with the things you know. But I am just as in the dark about this as anybody else here. So please, carry on. I shall simply observe." They both stared at him, dumbfounded. Did he actually expect them to continue their conversation as though nothing had happened, now that they knew he was eavesdropping? There was no way for them to know what he was planning! Wait, that's wrong. Kaede-chan took control of her own train of thought. He's right. Despite how creepy he was, he's didn't know anything, either. He wouldn't have had any way to have known what was going on.

"O...kay..." Shuichi said uncertainly. "So...how do you think we should go about this?" He looked back at Kaede-chan, still feeling Shinguji's gaze upon him. Kaede knew what he's done from what she'd been told, but knowing was nothing quite like experiencing what had happened for oneself. He knew that a large portion of their memories were probably fabricated, including the memories that Shinguji-kun had of being a _literal_ serial killer, but despite knowing this, the Ultimate Anthropologist still _really_ freaked him out. Everyone had kept something from their past selves, and it was possible that Shinguji-kun had retained his _desperate_ need of mental health services.

"I think we should be subtle about getting the information."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well. Kiibo definitely seemed like it was something he wanted to tell everyone."

While they were having this conversation, Kokichi Ouma investigated the room in the basement of the facility where he had woken up after the simulation had ended. It was almost exactly as he had remembered it when he woke up. The sterile white room had fourteen hospital beds, with seven on each side of the room. Each bed had a nightstand on one side, and some kind of monitor on the other. He noted that the bedding on all of the beds had been folded up, and that everyone's health charts had been relocated. He exited the room with the beds, picked the lock of the door directly across and entered. Someone had left their health sheets on the table. How careless. Kokichi had a suspicion that he was going to check, based on what he'd heard Monokuma griping about when he first regained consciousness.

"Thank God that Shirogane-chan's heart didn't go nutso in real life! Honestly! It's such a hassle to restart their hearts when they die in that world! I wish they'd let me just let 'em die for real!"

He inspected each of the charts left on the desk. It was exactly as he had suspected. All of the charts of the "dead" students besides Shirogane-chan's had something in common:

All of them had gone Code Blue at some point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In a hospital setting "Code Blue" is when someone's heart stops. I hope this chapter is a bit better than the last one, hehe.


	6. Complications

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps...things are more complicated than they may seem.

Kokichi Ouma sat in his room, having pinned up the pictures of all the students whose hearts stopped at some point during the killing game. He noted that all of the the students who were "executed" besides Kaito-chan had also fallen into comas, likely from shock. With the information about what happened after his death, he had categorised the classmates who had died in the simulation into three categories: those whose hearts had stopped, those who fell into comas soon after, and the one who'd experienced no adverse effects beyond those that would occur after being in a simulation for an extended period of time. He excluded Kiibo from all of his listings because although Kiibo had died within the simulation, he was a robot who wouldn't get the same shock reaction as the humans. He knew that Shirogane-chan was lying; it was extremely obvious to a liar like him. But for what possible reason would she lie? There was no possibility for her to save face now, no matter what she said.

Unless...

With this possibility in mind, he started the search for Kiibo's logs. Perhaps Miu-chan would be able to help him access them; he needed to see her anyway. On that note...there was someone else he had to talk to that day, as well. It wouldn't feel right if he didn't. Maybe he'd run into him on his way to Miu-chan.

Kokichi approached Miu's dorm room to the sight of Gonta-chan bowing to an _extremely_ confused Miu-chan.

"Gonta? What the fuck're you doing h--" she was interrupted by a long string of apologies given in third person.

"Gonta would like to apologize for strangling you! Gonta just wanted to protect you from what Gonta thought was the outside world, but Gonta knows that is not any excuse for the ungentlemanly actions Gonta took that day! Gonta is very sorry! And...Gonta messed up the cords in the game, too, which made Gonta not think Gonta did it, and not take accountability for it at first...Gonta is so sorry..."

"What the...Gonta...?" She blinked, in complete disbelief. Miu-chan was left speechless. Gonta-kun, of literally all fucking people, was the one who..."Are you fucking shitting me right now? Did that shrimpdicked Ouma put you up to this? Because there is no way that--"

"It's true. It's not a lie." Kokichi spoke up to confirm what Gonta-chan said. "And I also want to say that I'm sorry, too. For killing you. I put him up to it, and told him about the "outside world." I convinced him to do it. I was just...I just didn't want to die, you know? And I got scared..." Miu-chan, uncharacteristically, was attentively listening to his apology instead of just crudly interrupting him. "But that's not an excuse, either. I should have just told everyone about your plan."

It was at this statement that Miu-chan became herself again and rolled her eyes. "Shoulda, woulda, coulda, shrimpdick. What's done is done. It wasn't even real, anyway. And besides...it's not like I _wasn't_ trying to kill you! Why the fuck are you apologizing to _me_?! I should be apologizing to you! And...on that note..." She bowed her head, also uncharacteristic for the crude inventor. "I'm sorry. For trying to kill you. I'm...not even gonna say my reason, 'cuz it was just fuckin' selfish compared to your guys' reasons, to be honest. I'm such a fucking cunt...I was willing to kill everyone..."

"Yanno what, Miu-chan? After that apology, I'm not even mad! You just wanted to get out! It's okay! And I'm sure the others felt the same way, too." Kokichi responded cheerfully, putting his hands behind his head. "Actually...I still need to apologize. To Gonta-chan. For dragging him into this. For _using_ his-his kindness to--" Kokichi's apology was interrupted by a hug from the gentle giant himself. He felt a tear drip onto his shoulder as his feet parted from the floor. It soaked into his shirt.

"Kokichi-kun...It was not your fault! Gonta went along with your plan. Gonta was driven to...to _murder_. It was Gonta's fault." Gonta-chan said, his voice breaking a little bit. "Gonta is not mad at anyone but Gonta!" Gonta-chan picked up Miu-chan into a group hug.

"Gonta-chan..." He knew that any attempt to counter Gonta-chan's blaming himself would be useless, so he just hugged Gonta-chan back. Kokichi promised himself that he'd make it up to them sometime. And that wasn't a lie. But first...

"So, what do ya need, Cuckichi?" Miu-chan asked him, after they'd finished hugging and Gonta-chan put them down. "No offense, shrimpdick, but I know you a _little_ too well to think this was the only reason you came here. Hahaha!" She chuckled.

"Well, actually...yeah." He admitted, giving her a shit-eating grin. Seeing him acting fucking _normal_ made Miu-chan feel a little better about things. Even his annoying, shrimp-dicked, shit-eating grin was more comfortable than him being _genuinely_ sad. While his lying _was_ fucking annoying, him telling the truth was just...extremely _unsettling_.

"Oh, yeah. Anyway..."

* * *

Tenko stormed down the hallway. How dare she. How fucking _dare_ she. She wasn't even as mad at the degenerate male who literally _killed_ her as she was at Shirogane for this. At least he had some semblance of a _reason_ for being... _that_ way; Shirogane _made_ him that way. Shirogane had used her for _character development_ , and not even character development that made any fucking sense in her fucking _Danganronpa fanfiction_. Her heels tapped ominously on the tiles as she quietly snuck to Shirogane's dorm room. That _absolute_ degenerate! And she was an _atrocious_ writer, too! She knocked on Shirogane's door and stepped to the side. Neo-Aikido is supposed to be for defensive purposes, but Tenko figured that a little bit of pre-emptive defence was justified in protecting all of them from whatever that degenerate was planning next. She knocked on the door and stood to the side, preparing to take Shirogane down the second she opened the door. Not "take her down" as in muder, but "take her down" as in, "using a martial arts take-down move." Shirogane made a mistake when she wrote her like this!

"Hi-ya!" Tenko exclaimed, kicking Shirogane's feet out from under her and pinning her down before she even had the chance to fully open the door. "How dare you use me for character development, you degenerate nerd!? You're not even _good_ at writing your stupid fanfiction!"

Shirogane's glasses cracked upon her surprise meet-and-greet with the floor, as did something in her nose. She can survive wearing contacts for a little bit. Her biggest concern in this moment was that Tenko had twisted her arm behind her back and was holding it there. She squeaked, surprising Tenko enough to reduce her weight on Shirogane's head, worried that she'd _actually_ hurt her. This worry was further worsened when she saw a small, red puddle on the floor under Shirogane's face. Blood.

"Eek! Tenko didn't mean to actually hurt you!" She backed away, allowing Shirogane to get into a crawling position and pat around for her glasses while holding her nose. Shirogane had _not_ had a good time of late, not since the day she realized that she couldn't log out of her simulation. From being stuck in a fucking video game where she almost killed everyone, _for real_ , to Kiibo's stunt with the manga, to this shit. It was just like her middle school life, except this time, she couldn't even be mad at Tenko for shoving her into the floor; not after she almost killed everyone. And besides, she was plain _anyway_ ; the way she saw it, Tenko did her a _favor_ by breaking her nose. At least she had _some_ sort of distinguishing feature now.

"..." Tenko was slightly shocked that Shirogane didn't at least say anything about this, even though this was still in character for her. It was a very strange feeling, that something was off even though nothing particularly unusual was happening. She simply picked up her now-cracked glasses and moved her bent nose back, making a soft cracking sound. Tenko couldn't help but feel bad for attacking her now. Shirogane organised the killing game, but at this moment, she was completely defenseless. Was it really right, for her to use neo-aikido on an out-of-shape and completely defenseless _nerd_?

"Shirogane...?" Tenko's heart dropped when she heard Shirogane start to sob. Perhaps, things were more complicated than anyone knew...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, a chapter I feel at least somewhat confident about! It seems that things aren't as simple as it may seem...


	7. Who Am I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They were promised that they would be able to go home soon. But none of them know where that is.

Kiibo sat down on one of the couches in the common area. It was dark outside; Kiibo's internal real-time clock stated that it was 3:00AM. So much had had happened so fast that he'd never been able to stop and actually process any of the events that had come to pass. He really did think that it was the end, in that killing game. The real world was quite a lot more utilitarian towards robots, he mused, as his "dormitory" was literally the storage closet in the boy's bathroom. While Kiibo didn't really mind the "storage closet" part of his quarters, due to the fact he had no real use for pretty much anything that could be found in a human bedroom, he did mind the fact that he was expected to spend the night in a bathroom with air that his gas sensors detected had a higher than usual proportion of ammonia and methane. And although _he_ couldn't smell it, he knew that the gases would probably be absorbed into his chassis and mame him smell like human urine and feces. There was also the matter of the cleaning chemicals in that storage closet; Kiibo felt a strong sense of alarm when his gas sensors detected high levels of molecules such as chlorine gas, which he figured was a pre-programmed safety function; that history textbook they had been forced to study contained information concerning quite a nasty war in which chlorine gas was used as a weapon. It was definitely not a safe thing to be around. Due to these reasons, Kiibo refused to sleep in the storage closet, instead favoring the power outlets in the common area as a means to recharge. His friends may not find it very pleasant to be around him if he smelled like bleachy urine. He lay down on the couch, preparing to enter low power mode so that he could recharge more efficiently when the idea he'd been attempting to avoid was again returned by the scripts within his programming.

It was possible that the entire reason that he existed was to bring despair upon humans. He did not know if there was such a person as Professor Idabashi. If he truly existed, then he couldn't have been a very nice person, anyway. Shirogane-chan had said that his existence was just a gimmick for the reality TV show they had participated in; that he was created to be a stand-in for the audience. It was a horrid thought; that his entire existance was simply a gimmick for a cruel reality show designed to entertain the sick desires of the "outside world." Monokuma had confirmed that this reality show was, in fact, a real thing people watched by saying that the reason that they would no longer be forced to play the killing game was because the show had moved on to the next season. In the final trial of the game, they had sworn that it would be the last killing game, and yet another one was occuring, and they were helpless to stop it. Ultimate Hope? Did such a thing as hope even exist in this world, or was it a faraway dream, or even a fantasy? The "audience" was there for "hope." But it was an artificially constructed hope, born through real despair, even if its components were, too, artificially constructed. A thin line divides hope and despair; how cruel it was to put _real_ people through such despair for the sick pleasures of an audience demanding hope. He pondered the Laws of Robotics; it made sense, now, that he had attempted to break the Zeroth Law during the simulation; his entire existence was a violation of the First. And when he tried to follow the Laws, he was "erased," simply because the Laws of Robotics did not align with what the audience wanted to see.

It was greatly distressing; he remembered being told by Professor Idabashi that he had self-reset because he broke the Laws of Robotics. But his entire existence, according to what Shirogane-chan said, was in violation of the Laws of Robotics. Bringing despair was a form of harm. It brought his entire sense of self into question. What was his past? All of the data stored in his memory bank of anything before the killing game was questionable at best, and entirely fabricated at worst. It was a horrifying marvel of technology to be able to entirely fabricate one's memories. Kiibo thought about how Ouma-kun had said that he wasn't really a person. All of his "life," he had believed that what made up a person is not the materials they are composed of, but rather their experiences; but if all of his experiences were fake, how did he know that he was even a person? What if Ouma-kun was right, and he wasn't a person? Perhaps, this was the justification they used for the killing games; that because everything about them is fake, then the participants are not "real" people and thus it is fine to do what you please to them. His internal processors began heating up as his mind raced, perhaps the equivalent of humans getting a headache from thinking too much. Not a single one of them knew the truth. It was possible that nothing that any of them could ever remember experiencing up to this point was real. Shirogane-chan had said that she had written all of them. But it seemed that even she did not know the extent to which to the group believed it was all actually real; she seemed to be surprised that any of the people besides Akamatsu-chan were real people. The only indication there was that this world truly was reality was that there was a fly buzzing around somewhere. It was _extremely_ annoying. But even then, that could have been a fabrication as well. He was beginning to get high temperature warnings from the amount of work his processors were doing, and knew that if he kept going that he would forcibly shut down. But the thoughts just wouldn't leave his head, despite his processors returning more questions than ans

> Kaede saw Kiibo laying on one of the couches in the common room, the LED display on his collar that usually showed information such as his name and the time blank. He was completely shut off. He was also plugged in. Kaede walked over to the couch where he lay and grabbed his shoulder, perhaps to sit him up to see if his batteries had been messed with by Ouma-kun. He was strangely warm. She recoiled her hand in shock at this observation; he appeared to have been powered off for some time, and while electronics do get fairly warm when they performing high-memory functions, they cool down after a little bit. Had Ouma-kun, or perhaps Shirogane-chan, attempted to run some ancient video game on Kiibo or something like that? She did remember Shirogane-chan joking about running some game called "Demise" or something like that on Kiibo, who was less than appreciative. She sat him up and started looking for his power button. After pressing a few buttons that were likely added by Iruma-chan and thus definitely _not_ the power button, she found it in the nape of his neck. She now unwillingly knew the answer to Ouma-kun's long-running question that he used to tease Kiibo, and, blushing, made sure to keep his dignity intact before turning on the power button.

> "..." Kiibo did not look into her eyes. Kaede really hoped that he had, in fact, been shut down entirely, feeling like she could never live it down if he knew what buttons she had pressed while looking for his power button.

> "I'm sorry for pushing all the weird buttons! I was just looking for the power button and...Uh..." she blurted, apologizing for something Kiibo did not know about. He stared at her blankely, not quite reading her expression and body language properly. It seemed that he was still booting up.

> "Akamatsu-san, if I may ask: What did you do?" He blinked at her, terrified. Thank God she didn't press the self-destruct button! That would have been a total disaster. The he had a thought and blushed. "Oh. _Oh_. I'm so sorry--"

> It was at that point that a certain cursed grape decided to make an appearance, grinning creepily. "Do robots have dicks?"

> "No, papa." she found herself responding, not quite knowing why.

> "Telling lies?" Ouma-kun asked, in a very strange, sing-songy voice.

> "No, papa." Kiibo sang in response, his voice very high and childish.

> "Open your mouth!"

Kaede woke with a start, heaving as she sat up suddenly. What the heck was that? That was the last time she watched "vintage" YouTube videos late at night. Granted, it was also the first time, but it was most definitely the last. She definitely did not want a repeat of that...experience. To say the least. She slid out of bed, her legs trembling slightly. This was the first day since the first that she didn't wake up by falling out of bed, clutching at her neck and gasping for air, which she supposed was a minor victory. Even if it _had_ involved Ouma-kun invading her subconscious.

After getting ready, she exited her dorm and walked to the common area that doubled as a dining hall, her footsteps resonating on the tiles, and saw Kiibo laying on the couch in the dark. _Oh no_. She was not going to risk a repeat of that strange dream. She noticed that it was still dark outside. She was probably the first person to wake up. She instinctively began looking around for Exisals, and when she saw none, checked her Monopad to make sure she wasn't breaking any rules by being here so early. Luckily, the nighttime rules had changed, allowing them to use the common area section of the dining hall. The Monopad also said that it was 4:00AM. That would explain why it was still dark outside. She decided not to bother Kiibo at 4 o'clock in the morning and went back to her dorm to go back to sleep. As she closed the door, she thought she heard footsteps in the hallway nearby. It was likely just someone going to the bathroom.

When she woke up again, this time, more peacefully, there was actual sunlight shining through the window. She briefly wondered when they would be allowed to go home while getting ready and leaving her room. When she entred the common area, she was greeted by a very unsettling sight; someone had taken some desks--sixteen, to be exact--from a classroom and arranged them in a circle, as though there was going to be a class trial. The thought was...upsetting. She decided to take things into her own hands and started dragging the desks out of the circle, making a horrible noise as she dragged them across the tiled floor. She was not going to let this cruel prank bring up unpleasant memories for anyone else. Unfortunately, the unpleasant screeches caused by her dragging the desks around woke up everyone else, even booting up Kiibo, who'd been completely shut down earlier.

"What the hell is that noise?!"

"Nyeh...?"

"Please, be quiet."

"AaAaauUUUUUuGGggGGh!" Whoever had somehow been able to sleep through Kaede dragging desks around would have been awakened by Kiibo falling off the couch with a loud crash.

"Huh..." Everyone had come in and was staring at the desks, and Kaede, who was still dragging one of the desks to the hallway. It was obvious that Kaede was attempting to remove them from the formation they were in. She supposed that it would be a bizarre sight to wake up to.

"I'm not entirely sure what's going on here, but why were all these desks in a circle?" Shuichi-kun asked, examining all of the desks, then Kiibo. "And why were they in the dining hall?"

"Sixteen desks in a circle...it looks like someone attempted to play an unfunny prank by trying to bring us back to the class trials." Toujo-san pondered.

"Looks like someone put a looooot of work into attempting to pull a really stupid prank." Ouma-kun said. "Emphasis on attempting. I mean, you could at least try. I mean, the only person it looks like it got was Akamatsu-chan. But that was probably because she got here first." His hand trembled.

"I know it was you, Ouma. Don't even pretend." Harukawa-chan sniped back, staring intensely at Ouma-kun.

"No it wasn't, because it was ME!" A familiar black and white bear appeared before them. Not him again...

"What the hell do you want now?!" bellowed Momota-kun, glaring at Monokuma. "I'm not doing that class trial shit again!"

"Aw, you guys really aren't sentimental, are you? I just did it for old time's sake. Think of all the good memories we had, arguing with each other at class trials!" The bear enthused.

"What the hell do you mean by fun? Nobody here had any fun with that except for you!" Momota-kun retorted, clenching his fist. Shirogane-chan elected to remain silent.

"What do you want from us?! Just leave us alone!" Yumeno-chan asked, furrowing her eyebrows at the annoying bear. She was one of the ones who had to deal with that freaking bear the longest. It can't have been pleasant.

"I just wanted to tell you that there's oooone teensy-weensie thing I need you guys to do before you can go! Upupupu!" The bear chuckled coyly, likely revelling in their incredulous glares.

"Just stop the cackling and tell us already. I wanna go home." Yumeno-chan replied dully.

The bear chuckled more, dripping worry into each of their souls. What hoop would he make them jump through this time? Regardless, Kaede asserted that no matter what, they'd get through it. Together. "Well, you kinda need to know where you live to go home, so your next task is to figure out who you guys even are, and why you're here! Maybe, you can even find out who forced you all to be here! And spoiler alert! Shirogane-chan doesn't know anything, so don't ask her! If you can tell me who actually did it, and why you're here, then you can graduate! If not, then you're stuck here! Got it?" They all looked at the bear in horror.

"Wait a minute! You said that our original selves were erased!" Shuichi-kun exclaimed, pointing at him. "There's no way we can get them back!"

"Yeah, well, the goal isn't to get them back, but to figure out who they were! And besides! Who said that all the _memories_ are gone forever? Memories sometimes come back on their own, you know! And stop scratching up my floor!" And with that, the bear left, leaving the room in an awkward, heavy silence.

"Gonta doesn't feel like that's the end of the trials..." he mumbled, looking down at the floor.

"Hmm!" Yonaga-chan hummed, deciding to change the subject entirely. "Atua says...that we should have breakfast first!" She smiled, attempting to make the atmosphere less tense. Nobody responded.

"Hey! Hey! You know..." She went into Kaede's face. "It's rude to ignore Atua!"

"..." There was no response. Kaede felt as though the world had slowed down around her, the weight of everything pulling her down with it. Monokuma was right. She didn't even know where "home" _was_. For all she knew, she didn't even have a home. She could not think. She could not fight. She could not speak.

Yonaga-chan then attempted to get the attention of the others, in a similar manner. She was not going to give in to despair! No matter how much it weighed upon her shoulders, she could not! She had to stay strong for her friends! For Atua!

"..." Saihara-kun.

"..." Momota-kun.

"..." Ouma-kun.

The lack of response from the people who always knew what to say struck her as quite odd, and very worrying. Admittedly, the always-cheerful girl was feeling the gravity things as well after her attempts to interact with the others fell flat. She looked down at her shoes. "Hmm...Atua is telling me that you guys need to be left alone to think things through, for now." And so she left them alone, for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long-ass chapter, I felt like it kinda meanders for a bit before getting to the point, but everything is gonna be used at some point. >:3c


	8. Out of Character

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's five in the morning, and resident Visual Cursed is in Kaito's room for some reason! And on top of that, he's acting super weird! Wh???

Kaito was getting tired of all the hoops that stupid bear was making them all jump through. They survived his psychological torture. They survived him plunging them into despair. They survived learning that their entire lives were fabricated. He punched the wall. What more did that goddamn bear want?! He was half-convinced that Monokuma was just lying about the possibility of them getting out, dangling hope before them to make them perform like a bunch of damn monkeys! And if what Shirogane said about this being televised was true, then it was absolutely sick! Even that annoying, lying purple gremlin thought so, and if something was sick by that guy's standards, then it was double sick by actual people morals. And what's worse was...that he couldn't even respond to Monokuma's prompt. It sounded so...impossible. Wait. Kaito hit himself. What on Earth was he thinking?! He's Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars! He shouldn't be thinking like this! Even the impossible is possible if you work hard enough! He just had to keep up the motivation to keep going. He just had to. For everyone. He was going to beat that damn bear, even if it costed him his life! His _real_ life!

The floorboards creaked behind him while he was finishing his internal pep talk. He turned around, his eyes widened and teeth bared into a horrified expression. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. That better not be a ghost in his room right now. _Oh God_. He grabbed a flashlight from his night stand and shined it behind him. And the person who greeted him was far spookier than any ghost, in Kaito's opinion. The way the flashlight lit up his uninvited "companion's" yellow eyes was a sight to behold, before the person behind him shielded their eyes, the light clearly causing them some discomfort. The yellow eyes combined with the figure's tall, slender build, long, dark hair, and white clothing to further convince Kaito that they were a ghost. The light reflecting off of something shiny on the mysterious person's sleeves that was reflected as they shielded their eyes, however, appeared to be a knife to the terrified Kaito.

_Oh God. I'm gonna die._

Kaito's scream could be heard from the adjacent dorm rooms as he threw a salt canister that he'd been given to make him feel safer against ghosts at the mysterious figure. Having thrown the entire canister, it hit the other person's head with a thunk, bouncing onto the floor and covering it with salt. Well, at least there'd be no risk of ghosts in his room. The mysterious figure grabbed their head when the salt canister bounced off of it. Feeling emboldened by their show of weakness, Kaito ran to the light switch and flicked it on, revealing the mysterious figure to in fact be much worse than a ghost. The figure behind him was Korekiyo Shinguji, maskless and in his pajamas.

He screamed again. His scream was heard from space. "W-w-what the hell is wrong with y-you?! Sh-Shinguji-kun?!? W-why the hell are you in my room??! A-and where is your m-mask?!" A horrible thought dawned on Kaito. "B-but I'm a guy! Please d-don't try to send me to your s-sister!" But Shinguji-kun appeared to barely register his pleas, blinking sleepily at Kaito. And before Kaito could even figure out what was going on, he heard another creepy noise, this time a strange clicking sound at his door, which swung open to reveal Kokichi-kun, along with a number of his other friends, who were gaping at the strange scene before them. It was possible that all fourteen of the others were standing in his doorway.

"Kaito-kun, what's going on?"

"What is that _degenerate male_ doing in your bedroom?!" A title that, once being applied to all of the guys was now only applied to Shinguji-kun, and occasionally Kokichi-kun. It was definitely an improvement; he didn't really like being called a "degenerate," much preferring that the actual "degenerate" in the room got that label applied to him. Said degenerate simply blinked at the incredulous group standing in Kaito's doorway.

Kaito grabbed Shinguji-kun's shoulders and started shaking him, not really caring that he appeared quite fatigued and extremely confused. "Yeah, what the hell do you have to day for yourself, you goddamn weirdo?! How did you even get into my locked room?!" Everyone was staring at Shinguji-kun, eyes wide with terror. Whatever his answer could be, knowing Shinguji-kun, it was certain to be extremely unsettling.

Which is why they were surprised when he sleepily responded with this:

"Hm...This isn't my dorm...I don't know." This instantly provoked Kaito, who began shaking the sleepy creeper even more vigorously.

"The hell do you mean you don't know, you goddamn creep?! How long were you here?!" the enraged astronaut bellowed, holding Shinguji-kun close to him to shout directly into his ear. "Don't you play dumb with me, your eyes were open! Don't pretend it was sleepwalking!" But Shinguji-kun still looked confused, giving Kaito exactly zero answers and about 800 more questions.

"...Uh..." Amami-kun suddenly spoke up, seeming to remember something. "One time, I accidentally walked into his dorm room because he left it open and it's next to mine, and I saw him sleeping with his eyes open. So if he doesn't know, I mean...knowing him, he might be weird enough to do this in his sleep." Everyone stared at Amami-kun incredulously.

"How did you mistake his dorm for yours?" Saihara-kun asked, interrogating the green-haired boy.

"Well, these rooms aren't labeled like the other ones were, and our rooms are next to each other, so...and I also leave my door open on accident sometimes." The slightly embarrassed Amami-kun scratched his head and looked down at the floor. "But I dunno, man. I'm just throwing the possibility out there." Shinguji-kun blinked sleepily again, not understanding half of what was being said. Kaito looked at his eyes and dropped him, deciding that interrogating him when he's like this was more trouble than it was worth, causing Shinguji-kun to stumble a little bit as he regained his feet. He was in his own world.

"Even if that's true...That still doesn't answer the question of why your mask is off." Kaito exclaimed, pointing at Shinguji-kun. "You said you only take it off in front of people your sister trust--" At the mention of his sister, Shinguji-kun's entire demeanor changed, as though a switch had been flipped. He began cackling.

"Kukukuku...KukukukukuKUKUKUKUKU!" The others stepped back, alarmed by his sudden increase in energy. "I was just waiting for you to bring _her_ up again, kukuku!" The slender, long-haired boy grinned, the full effect of his grin reaching the others in the absence of his mask. "I don't care if she trusts you anymore! I don't care about her anymore! All the better if she doesn't trust you! If I make her uncomfortable enough, maybe she'll finally leave me alone! It's the perfect plan! Kehehe!" This sudden change in personality was shocking. Korekiyo Shinguji. The creepy dude who was in a relationship with his _sister_ had suddenly done a 180° on them. Not in the sense of his creepiness, as that was exactly the same if not worse, but in his views of his sister.  _What the fuck's going on?_

"Wh--Is this some kind of trick?! Didn't you say you didn't care what other people say about you?!" Kaito exclaimed, stepping back a little bit with wide eyes. What the actual hell?

"I don't! And I don't care what _she_ thinks of me anymore!" The Ultimate Anthropologist continued to laugh and blabber on about nonsense, even picking up some of the salt from the floor and rubbing it in his hair. You know, like a weirdo.

"I think you should go back to sleep." Kiibo advised. Kaito found this particular turn of events to be somehow??? Worse??? Than what had transpired in the killing simulation??? At least _that_ wasn't--you know-- _real_. It then dawned on him that Shinguji-kun probably wasn't always this way. _Someone else_ had made him this way. _Someone else_ had taken a perfectly okay person and quite literally broke his mind in half with that horrifying backstory. _Permanently_. For what was ultimately a bad fanfiction of real shit that actually happened. It made what Shirogane did even more despicable. Thinking about it actually gave Kaito an odd sense of pity for the Ultimate Anthropologist, which was very strange to him, considering his simultaneous contempt for the guy. Like, _Okay, this guy's clearly got more than a few screws loose. But it doesn't even come close to an excuse for acting like this._ But it still really made him mad. Toujo-chan began leading the half-asleep and out-of-what-remained-of-his-mind Anthropologist to his own dorm room by the shoulders, with Gonta-kun and Kiibo-kun making sure he didn't take any detours. They had a brief conversation in Kaito's doorway before Hoshi-kun noticed that it was 5:30AM, aka too early for most of the others to be awake. The crowd gradually dissipated, leaving Kaito and Shirogane behind.

"I don't think I can ever forgive you." Kaito mumbled, not realizing he was saying his thoughts aloud. Shirogane looked down at the floor. She didn't think she could ever forgive herself for what she did, either. It was just plain supposed to be a VRPG. Nothing more, nothing less. And definitely nothing like this. He noticed that something seemed off about her. "What? Not gonna gloat about it? You're the mastermind, aren't you?" The only response he got when he asked this question was a blank stare, before she turned around and walked back to her dorm. Her nose was bent as though it had recently been broken, and he thought he noticed that the edges of her eyes were a little wet, her mouth slightly open as though she desperately wanted to tell him something. He considered the idea that perhaps, there was far more than meets the eye in this incident. A thought that quickly turned into a hunch.

And he was going to get all of them out of here. Even the creepy one who somehow sleepwalks into locked rooms. And even the fujoshi, who tortured all her friends for a shitty fanfiction.

The impossible is possible, all you gotta do is make it so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *drips out story details* Anyway I thought that Kork was a little 2D in the game, so I decided to start him on a path that moves on the story! This is gonna get a bit headcanon heavy from this point.


	9. Virtual Reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaede notices that something is not quite right with Shirogane-chan, and will put her anger at her aside to figure out what. After all, she is still her dear friend.

"Hmm...even if it were possible, I do not know what you speak of." Shinguji-kun stood firm on his stance. Kaede shook her head. Why was it so inconceivable to him that he sleepwalked into Momota-kun's and did a 180° on everyone? She furrowed her eyebrows and clenched her fists, inhaling deeply. She decided not to press it further. It's pretty normal to forget about things you did when you were half asleep. But...what happened earlier that morning was still just...unnerving. Really, _really_ unnerving. She wasn't sure if Momota-kun would ever be able to recover from...that. How did he get into the locked room? And how would it be possible to get into the locked room while sleepwalking...? It was so strange...was it possible that Shinguji's subconscious was reverting to his "real" self? No...that was impossible...! She exhaled, not realizing that she was holding her breath. What he'd told her during the killing game continued to disturb her, even after all these months. When he'd said that he'd arrange for her to meet with his sister...he was saying he was going to kill her! It still left a bitter taste in her mouth, even though she knew it wasn't real. Even though she knew that nothing about any of them was real.

"Kukuku...You seem a little off today, Akamatsu-san. Is there anything else on your mind, besides events which I have no recollection of?" Even more creepy was that Shinguji-kun seemed to be able to read minds. Kaede's posture stiffened, her heart racing. Everything about this guy was just creepy, inside and out!

"Oh, no, it's nothing!" Her voice was high and lacked depth. "I was just thinking about what happened this morning!" She scratched her head, her hands slightly clammy. Last night's dinner wasn't sitting so well in her stomach, what with the weird dreams she'd been having of late and the even weirder reality. Shinguji-kun raised an eyebrow at her, but pressed no furter. This uncertainty was getting quite bothersome. Kaede turned and started walking to the dining hall, the sound of her footsteps on the tile floor resonating through the hallway. The atmosphere this morning felt quite different from the previous days. Perhaps it was due to the strange events that had transpired of late. She stopped in front of Shirogane-chan's door for reasons she didn't really understand. Kaede knew that Shirogane-chan was the mastermind of the killing game, but...there was just this look in her eyes, every time Kaede saw her, even in passing, that made her feel like that wasn't the whole story. And what was more telling was that Shirogane-chan avoided eye contact, or even avoided the presence of the others when at all possible. It was likely because most of them were angry at her. Kaede even noticed that her nose seemed a little bent; someone had probably broken it. Admittedly, Kaede was a little angry as well. But it didn't feel quite right to hate Shirogane-chan for what happened, and she didn't really know why. It was just a hunch that she had.

Kaede stood in front of Shirogane-chan's door. She felt like she should ask her about what she knew. Her hand reached forward and knocked the door. Silence. Kaede waited at the door for several minutes, with increasingly dark thoughts passing through her mind with every passing second. What if...What if they'd driven her to...The thought was horrifying to consider, but what was even more horrible to consider was that it was entirely possible. She realized that nobody had exactly treated Shirgane-chan very kindly since waking up from the simulation, but Kaede remembered that even Kiibo, who hated Shirogane-chan with every fiber of his being, said that he felt that their treatment of her had gone too far, that crimes committed in a fake world shouldn't be punished so harshly in the real world. Kaede knocked again. She'd been standing there for twenty minutes, and was very worried when she heard footsteps coming up to her right. She turned.

"Uh...Akamatsu-san...? What are you doing...?" It was Shirogane-chan! Kaede tensed up a little bit before she sighed a breath of relief, her body relaxing. Oh, thank God.

"Aaa! Shirogane-chan! I was just waiting for you!" Kaede explained, jumping a little bit and scratching her head. "I was getting a little worried..."

"Really? You were worried about...me? After everything I've done?" The bespectacled girl looked down at her feet. Kaede really is an anime protagonist, isn't she?

"Well, yeah. To tell you the truth...I was kind of mad, too. But..." Kaede held her arm. "Crimes in a virtual world don't translate to real world punishment, no matter how real it felt! At least, in my book." She looked Shirogane-chan in the eye. Shirogane-chan's eyes were wide with shock.

"Haha...you really are like a protagonist!" Shirogane-chan smiled, tentatively.

"And also," Kaede started. "I've been getting the feeling you know more than you let on. Something that'd prove it wasn't your fault." Shirogane-chan inhaled sharply in response.

"Uh..." Kaede took this as an affirmative response.

"Why don't you tell anyone?" Her tone softened as she held Shirogane's hand. "I'm sure they'll understand if they know." Shirogane-chan stood pensively, taking deep breaths as her eyes turned to the floor.

"If I tell you...will you believe me?" She asked after what seemed like an eon of silence.

"Of course! I don't think there's anything you could say that would be less believable than reality is right now." She held Shirogane-chan's hand more firmly now, placing one hand on top of it. It was warm. Shirogane-chan's eyes sparkled with surprise. _Believe_ her? After...after everything she'd done?

"Ok...promise you'll believe me, okay?" Shirogane-chan began telling her story, right from the very beginning. How they were all classmates at the rebuilt Hope's Peak Academy, in Class 132. It made sense. She then started explaining a book series called "Danganronpa," written by someone named Touko Fukawa, and how she'd become obsessed with it. She'd become so obsessed with it that she'd forgotten that the series was based off of a true story; a story that Fukawa-sensei had lived through herself. She explained how she asked Iruma-chan to help her code a VR game for a VR headset that was relatively new at the time, an innovation to an existing VR technology that allowed full connection to the five senses but did not transfer the shock of dying in the simulation onto the user's real body. This innovation was quite popular, as it enabled many more games to be played using the headset without the user risking coma or death from getting a game over. Using this technology, she created a fangame, basing the characters off of her real-life classmates.

Shirogane-chan also noted that she'd been lectured for poor writing in the simulation by her classmates, specifically Tenko-chan, Himiko-chan, and surprisingly, Shinguji-kun as well. She stated that she and Amami-kun were the only two players in the game who weren't supposed to be AIs. She had no idea of the circumstances until she was unable to access the game's menu to log out. On that day, she also learned that Amami-kun no longer remembered that it was a video game. She said that when she killed Amami-kun in an attempt to get him out so he could see what was wrong, explaining that the game was programmed to automatically log players out when they were killed, she realized that the code for the dead player automatic logout sequence had failed to execute. And when she saw the biotags, numbers that are displayed in the admin interface for each headset that is connected to a server, she realized that somehow, her classmates were all playing the game, but had all had their personalities and memories replaced with those of her OCs. So she kept playing as though nothing were wrong, trying her best to induce forced log outs through deaths. But the number of headsets connected to the interface remained the same, no matter what she did. So in a last-ditch effort to try to forcibly log everyone out of the game, she initiated the sixth class trial, knowing that in any possible scenario with her OCs' personalities that she would be executed, which may allow her to log everyone else out. But when she died in the game, she still wasn't logged out. She said that nobody was able to log out until the last three survivors walked off the world.

Kaede was taken aback. This...this was...a video game? This was an accident? This account, too long and too detailed to be false. The look Shirogane-chan had in her eyes as she told her story...it couldn't have been faked. She just had a feeling that she should trust Shirogane-chan. It's not life-or-death, but she wouldn't really have any reason to lie. Not when she was just as stuck here as the rest of them.

"I believe in you, Tsumugi-chan." Tsumugi-chan's eyes widened. This...this was the first time that anyone had called her by her given name since they'd exited the simulation. Kaede saw tears form in the base of Tsumugi-chan's eyes, rolling down her cheek and fogging up her glasses. "And...if anyone doubts you, I'll be there to back you up. I promise." She saw Tsumugi-chan smile, probably for the first time in weeks. Her anger at her melted away after that explanation. "And...We're gonna get to the bottom of this. Together. Okay?" Tsumugi-chan nodded and hugged Kaede.

"Hey! Gonta hear everything, and want to help too!" This was the first time they noticed another friendly presence. He smiled at the two of them.

"Atua told me this was so...He gives you His forgiveness, Shirogane-chan." For once, Atua was right. Kaede smiled at the both of them. She wasn't even weirded out that they were eavesdropping, not when it led to this.

"I...still feel really bad. About what happened."

"And it's okay to feel bad. Anyone would feel that way." She patted Tsumugi-chan's back. It was going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kinda took the idea of the Ultimate Cosplayer trying to be a nerd gone wrong and ran with it. I always thought she was pretty cute.


	10. Just Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ouma-kun asked Toujo-kun for a favor, which later appeared to be getting a bunch of people drunk, and Kaede's room was unlocked. Two plus two is four, and Ouma-kun probably went into everyone's room to look for something. But when Kaede finds a rather large USB drive in one of her drawers, she investigates. It looks like things are coming along...

"Fine. If that is what you request of me, then I shall fulfill it. Just, remember to keep in mind all potential outcomes of this request." Kaede heard Toujo-san talking to someone in the dining hall and turned to listen more closely. _What's she being asked to do?_ She peeked in and saw a short, purple haired boy wearing a white uniform and a signature checkered scarf. She briefly wondered if Panta affected pigmentation before thinking of requests that Ouma-kun could be making of the Ultimate Maid. Could he be asking her to pull the Ultimate Prank? No, he'd do that shit himself. It must be something that wouldn't work if he were to do it...The thought brought a chill down her spine. What could he be doing? Despite his motive video saying that his "evil organization's" motto is "never murder," he'd already shown that he had no problem getting other people to kill for him. And she also knew that in the right (or wrong) situation, Toujo-san could be driven to murder. She pushed this out of her mind. Not today, Satan.

 

 

> _"I have no faith in humanity."_

The memory, the one she'd remembered late at night, continued to stick with her. She remembered saying those words. She remembered the burning feeling in her heart as she said those words. But that memory was different from those given by the flashback lights. In that memory, she had hints of the parts she couldn't remember, just out of reach. She would often remember new details, just to end up forgetting them again later. It was a real memory. That hatred and anger she felt...it was so strangely familiar, yet distant in such a strange way. She started making her way to her dorm room. This building had no Ultimate Labs. It made sense, because this building was _real_. It couldn't just be _specially_ made for them. That would cost an absurd amount of money. Also, where would they put it? While pondering this, her attention was drawn to the windows. The windows. She couldn't believe that in all of this time, nobody checked to see if any of the windows opened. Granted, very few people left the first floor since that forced march to the sixth floor. Seriously, who designed this building?

...On second thought, it may or may not have been the Monokubs. Shaking her head, she walked over to the window and attempted to open it. Despite there being a latch, it didn't open. She checked the bottom of the window a little more closely, even feeling the base of the window pane with her fingers. Besides being dusty and covered with cobwebs and dead insects, the window was bolted shut. Window sills tend to be pretty disgusting, but why would it need to be bolted shut? _This implies that it used to open. It's just...strange._ Kaede rubbed the disgusting stuff off her fingers and went to the bathroom to wash her hands. While washing her hands, she realized that she hadn't really talked to very many people since she woke up, not even in the times when they'd all been assembled. Sure, she's spoken to them in passing, but she hadn't really had the chance to just talk to anyone. Not casually, at least. And that persistent anger, that _hatred_ in her heart still couldn't be shaken. It was just terrible. _Was this the person I was before this all happened? This angry, hateful person?_ The real world was certainly not a kind place.

She decided to go into the common room again. After all, there was a couch. There weren't exactly very many places for her to go; most of the other rooms in the building were just...empty rooms. Her shoes clicked on the tile floor as she approached the common area, with its crystal dome and its soft couches; if they weren't imprisoned here, it'd almost be _pleasant_ , actually. Nice things get ruined by them being jail. In the room were several of her classmates; Momota-kun, Tsumugi-chan, Gonta-kun, Chabashira-san, Rantarou-kun, Toujo-san, Himiko-chan, and even Shinguji-kun. And everyone except for Toujo-san seemed...off-balance. Momota-kun was standing on the back of the couch, yelling.

"I AM KAITO MOMOTA, LUMINARY OF THE STARS!!" His face seemed quite flushed, and he was doing a strange pose with his arms, almost like he was attempting to be a character from a shonen manga. It was strange. He _did_ kinda have Yu-Gi-Oh hair.

"Uh...Gonta no feel good." Gokuhara-kun was resting his face on the table. He seemed tired.

"Nyeh...this juice tastes funny...I'm sleepy." Yumeno-chan was just lying on the couch. It took a second for Kaede to realize what was going on: Somehow, everyone had ingested alcoholic beverages. _Hold on...aren't we underage? We're literally first-years in high school._ The legal drinking age, assuming they were still in Japan, is 20. It was the same as the driving age. So theoretically, one could obtain a driver's license and then legally drink. When you think about it, it's actually a recipe for drunk drivers...Kaede shook her head. This is getting off-topic. She had to duck to avoid being hit in the head by a shoe thrown by Yonaga-chan. _What a mess..._

"Hey, guys!" Kaede exclaimed, deciding to get the attention of the group to attempt to reign in the chaos. The long-suffering Toujo-san stood by the kitchen counter, attempting to avoid the drunk people as much as possible. They didn't really look at Kaede, and now appeared to be playing some form of frisbee, except using a paper plate that had very clearly been pulled out of the garbage. It had holes cut in it to see through and two holes holepunched into the edges, as though someone were using it as a weird mask. It had a triangular nose, and a large, goofy smile drawn on it in Sharpie, as well as dark circles colored in around the eye holes. She was able to see it in such detail because someone accidentally threw it at her. It was soiled by the remains of what appeared to be spaghetti. Looking more closely at the holes created by what was probably a holepuncher, she noticed that they looked like they had a string tied to them at some point.

Tsumugi-chan wobbled over to Kaede and attempted to take the mask back. "H-hey! Uh...we were using the Sans face for fun," she stammered, using very 100% grammatically correct language.

"Why does it have tomato sauce on it?"

"We fed him," shouted Iruma-san, shouting at the two of them from across the room. She had taken off her shirt. That was likely one of the reasons why Gokuhara-kun was resting his head on the table, when one thought about it. "C'mon! We're not done strip-pokering him!" Kaede looked over at Toujo-san. Her soul looked like it was leaving her body. _Is this what Ouma-kun asked her to do? Why didn't she refuse the request?_

"Sorry to ruin the fun, but this should probably go back in the trash..." Kaede started, before she was glommed on by Amami-kun.

"No! Don't throw him away! He is my son! I still need to paint his nails!" Kaede shoved him off. Then Amami-kun started painting nail polish onto the edges of the already-soiled paper plate, as though the divets in the plate were nails.

"IT'S BE THE U-ULTIMA-ATE SANS NOW!" Tsumugi-chan announced drunkenly, holding the paper plate in the air, Lion King style. "SAMS ATUA!!! HE IS GOD NOW." This had long since gotten out of hand.

"I have ha-never heard of Sams Atua, what is h-his hi-culture? I'm the anthro...anth...ant? I'm the ant, right? Is my t-talent an ant?" Shinguji-kun was wandering around blindly, walking right past Tsumugi-chan into the wall. It appears that he, too, has fallen into what appeared to be Ouma-kun's trap. But why did Toujo-san go along with it...?  _I will literally never forget that._ Kaede chuckled a little bit at his expense.

"Gonta h-has an ant, right here!" Gokuhara-kun suddently stood up and stumbled in the opposite direction of Shinguji-kun to show him something very small that he was holding in his hand. Kaede was going to have to bring out the big guns. She took out an airhorn that Ouma-kun forced her to keep (he literally gave it back to her every time she attempted to dispose of it) and made herself squeeze the large bulb behind the horn. Everyone in the room, including Kaede, flinched at the loud sound. She didn't anticipate how loud it'd be.

"AAAAAAAAA IT'S A FITRE!!! THE BODIES ARE HERE!!!" Chabashira-san started running around the room and flailing her arms. Kaede supposed this was a drunken attempt at Aikido. Chabashira-san's attempts successfully fended off the clearly very extremely dangerous Shinguji-kun, the "Ultimate Ant," who was aimlessly wandering around the room, likely in an attempt to figure out where he lived.

_This...is just getting sad._ Right when Kaede turned to leave the room, attempting to forget the madness she had witnessed, her hand was grabbed by someone much shorter than her. She looked down and saw a familiar black hat-wearing tennis pro.

"Watch this."

"What?" Kaede looked down to see Hoshi-kun staring up at her, grinning maniacally as he tossed a tennis ball up and down in his hand. He, too, was clearly intoxicated. He wore a silly grin, with his face blushed red and eyes half-open. "That's a tennis ball...?" The short tennis player opened his mouth and put the entire tennis ball in. Kaede half-expected him to swallow the damn thing. But when he started trying to spit it out, it became apparent that he'd probably pushed it in too far. Hoshi-kun had forever sealed his fate as that guy who tried to eat a tennis ball while drunk.

"Hmmnng? Hhhahaaigh." Kaede had no idea what he was trying to say, but he was gesturing to the tennis ball that he had stuffed into his mouth. "Hnnhnahnhgh...wee. Hhh ih hhng ghhguuuh hiegh uhh a sihuahun." His speech was garbled by the tennis ball. And that was when Kaede knew for certain that it was going to be a _long_ day.

It took a few hours to get the tennis ball out of Hoshi-kun's mouth. It took several more hours to deal with the carnage in the common area that was caused by the drunk people. If a murder had happened then, they'd have an alibi. But what could have been used to get everyone drunk? They were all underage, and assuming this was a school building, there'd be no alcoholic beverages in the building. And it's not like anyone could leave, either. Kaede knew that it had to have been Ouma-kun's idea. And she was going to tell him off the second she found that gremlin. He had been acting very suspicious recently; once, Kaede caught him sneaking around with a document that appeared to be Kiibo's data logs. Admittedly, she didn't know much about computers, but it definitely looked like data output logs. But how would Ouma-kun know what those mean? He'd have to get Iruma-chan's help. As she pondered this, she arrived at her dorm room and inserted her key into the lock. But when she turned it, it didn't make the clicking sound distinctive to a door being unlocked like it usually did. The door had already been unlocked. Her hand clenched around the doorknob. A shiver traveled up her arm and down her spine. She tensed as it coursed through her body. Someone had been in her room. She had definitely locked the door when she left; she had tested the doorknob after she locked the door, just to make sure it was locked. The doorknob jiggled, but didn't turn then. Wasn't she the only person with the key to her room? The killing game was over, but still...the idea that someone had snuck into her room would be creepy, even outside of these circumstances.

Regardless, Kaede took a deep breath and carefully opened the door. The first thing that she noticed when she peeked inside was that her room, while not quite ransacked, definitely appeared as though someone had gone through her belongings. Many of her belongings had been moved, and there were a number of places where she could have sworn were dustier than they were when she looked in. Upon entering the room, she sneezed. The dust had definitely been disturbed in this room, meaning that someone had to have been in the room. _Someone who must have forgotten to lock the door on their way out. I wonder if they were in a hurry...but then, why is the room still so clean?_ It couldn't have been Toujo-san cleaning her room, as she was still dealing with the mess that had been made by the antics of those who were drunk. Kaede had offered to help, but Toujo-san assured her that she had it under control and did not allow her to assist in any way. Actually, the more she thought about it, the more she felt that this was most likely Ouma-kun's work. Nobody else knew how to lockpick, and he did ask Toujo-san to create a distraction. She decided to open all of the drawers in order to check if anything had been taken and found a USB drive. She didn't remember ever seeing it before, but somehow, it seemed familiar. It was a pink flashdrive that had the amount of storage space inside of it printed on the non-connecting end--32GPB. 32...geopbytes?! In a USB drive?! The largest USB drive she remembered seeing anywhere was 256ZB! And it costed somewhere around ¥20000! She carefully examined this marvel of technology. It looked like a fairly well-made USB stick. The lettering on it indicating its storage capacity didn't look like it could be a typo made by some cheap knock-off company. Kaede decided to go to the computer lab, just to make sure. There must be a computer powerful enough to handle whatever must be in this there.

When she arrived at the computer lab, she noticed that Iruma-chan was there. By the looks of it, she was probably making inappropriate jokes about the computers. No matter. Kaede sat down at one of the computers and logged in, almost as if she were on autopilot. Her username and password just...came to her. That was quite strange. Well, Tsumugi-chan did say that they were classmates, and Monokuma mentioned that some of their memories may come back to them. That was probably what happened. It was kind of surreal.

"Nggh! Akamatsu-san! How did you manage to penetrate these bad boys?" Iruma-san walked over and started gesturing inappropriately. "What do you have that I, the golden-brained genius Miu Iruma, don't? I've been trying to get in these computers for a while now, but they won't budge!"

"Uh...I just used my username and password." Kaede inserted the flash drive. "I'm trying to figure out if the storage capacity stated on this is correct, because it's really large. It's way, way bigger than the last USB drive I remember buying." She chuckled a little bit.

"Oh? How big is it?"

"Uh...it says it's...32 geopbytes."

Iruma-san made a gross face upon hearing that. "Nggh! 32...geopbytes? I-I've heard of geopbyte hard drives, b-but--G-g-geopbyte USB drives? That...has to be a typo! But it'd be amazing if it wasn't..." Kaede figured that she'd react like this. She clicked on the settings menu and opened up the storage category to check the storage. The storage unit used in the computer was the same as the flash drive: the geopbyte. 256 geopbytes.

"This...this is impossible. This technology is like, 50 years away...hold on." Something occurred to Kaede. After all, didn't Tsumugi-chan tell her that they were the 132nd class, not the 79th? That would mean that the date was actually 53 years after the year they thought they were in. She clicked the bottom right corner of the screen, where the date was located. Over 100 years since they were first founded, and MacroHard hadn't changed their overall layout. And MacroHard Center still crashed constantly. It was 2:00PM, 19 September 2154.

As the full gravity of this relevation sunk in, she remembered her original purpose for being here. To examine the contents of this flash drive. She saw its name in the devices and printers menu. _Chopin._ It really was her flash drive. When she clicked open the USB drive menu, a wave of déjá vú overtook her. It was familiar. The most recently created file, a MacroHard Cubicle document, was last opened around six months ago. Before the killing semester must have started. She didn't know how she knew this, she just did. And with memories, _genuine_ memories, they're kind of just something you just _know_ , you know?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did actual math for this. I did research on Metric system prefixes for this to make it work with Moore's law. This was pretty fun, tbh. Hehe no beta readers we flaunt our typos like men.


	11. Back to Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaede found her flash drive, and its contents are more than a little disturbing. The date is 50 years ahead of what anyone thought it was, and everyone immediately begins blaming Shirogane-san. But when important information is brought to light, things get a little more complicated, especially as a rift in the group forms over whether or not Shirogane-san's account can be trusted.

Kaede read through all of the files in "her" flash drive. _Her_ flash drive. A flash drive from 50 years in the future. No, _she_ was from 50 years in the future. At least, she was born 50 years later than she thought she was. All of these files...they were created by _her_. And yet...it was not her who created those files. The Kaede Akamatsu who created those files was gone. In a way, that girl had died, right when the killing game started. Kaede Akamatsu, the one that her family and her teachers knew, was dead. And another girl was there in her place. Scrolling through the files, she began to get a better idea of the type of person that inhabited her body before her. Her name was Kaede Akamatsu. She was not only the girl who hated humanity. She was the piano freak who hated humanity, the piano freak who thought it would be better if all of civilisation were to die and begin anew.  The girl who kept records of all of her classmates for some reason. She opened one of the files, a list she kept simply named "Class 131." It had the names and pictures of all of her classmates. The pictures were physically same people that this Kaede knew, yet at the same time, clearly very different. She had written "Kill" by most of the names. She was very happy Iruma-chan left her alone when she found this. An incomprehensible rage seized her heart, corrupting her soul when she saw the pictures of the students labeled "Kill." _I will k_ _ill all of them. I am doing the world a favor by doing this. They are not worthy of the air they breathe nor the dirt beneath their feet._ Kaede snapped herself out of it, shuddering. What the hell was that? She...she just wanted, so deeply and passionately, to kill the people she remembered as her friends. Tsumugi-chan. Amami-kun. Yonaga-chan. Yumeno-chan. Chabashira-chan. Iruma-chan. Ouma-kun. Shinguji-kun. Harukawa-chan. Toujo-chan. Hoshi-kun. _Shuichi-kun_. The memory of wishing so deeply for their deaths gave her a sensation almost as though someone had dropped an ice cube down her shirt. She opened another file, labeled "manifesto." She read her plan to kill; Her reasons to kill most of her classmates. It terrified her; what kind of person was she? Clearly, she was the kind of person who believed that most people on the Earth should die. And she was going to start her massacre of the "unworthy" of life with her class.

> _The Earth's population must be reduced to 1/4th of its total number in order to create a new world order; where the strong shall live, and the weak shall perish. This world will consist of only the worthy; only those worthy of continuing to exist. Humanity's greatest flaw is how existence is regarded as a right. This is what creates all of the world's problems. If we made it clear that existence is not a right, then the world would be a much better place. People would not take life for granted. There are those who were so broken by this world that the only way to move forward is to put them out of their misery. If those who did not deserve existence had been taken care of in the first place, then they would not have to die. But alas, there is nothing to be done._

Was she...was she really the person who wrote this? Kaede felt the air leave the room as she read more and more of the manifesto that she had written. Put them out of their _misery_? She...she didn't know this person at all. And...she didn't think she wanted to know that person. That hateful, angry person who wrote this document; a long document, detailing a new world order in which only the strong would survive, with the talented on top, and where those who could not survive on their own would perish. A world where the punishment for not being "good enough" was death. 200 pages of this. There was nothing indicating what had made her this way, nothing that gave any indication of why she wanted humanity to suffer. At least, not in her manifesto. She wondered if the old Kaede Akamatsu had had a god complex. What was scariest about this document was that its voice felt like something that she had written. Kaede, this Kaede, decided to check one of the more recently edited documents, one named "lab.docx" to try to prevent herself from being convinced to think the way that the old Kaede thought by her own manifesto. It was a research question on cabin fever, with everything before the data written up. The old Kaede's lab write-up. It looks like she hadn't finished it. And now she never will. When she read the procedure, she remembered something else. This was a group project. But she didn't quite remember who her partners were; likely because they were different people now. The change in tone between documents seemed pretty strange. One was an unabashed pledge to destroy humanity, the other a fairly innocent-looking lab report. She closed the files, their contents remaining fresh in her mind. She felt like there was something else behind that lab report. What was she planning to do? With _that_ manifesto, everything on that flash drive became questionable.

 _I should probably tell the others about this. No, I need to. But..._ Kaede had doubts. What would everyone else think of her if she told them about this flash drive? The manifesto? The kill list? They wouldn't trust her. They already didn't have much reason to, anyway. Ouma-kun wouldn't shut up about how her "murderous tendencies" must have stayed with her. And she didn't want to find out if that wad true. She decided that she would tell them about the lab report she found, but not any of the other contents of the flash drive. That could wait. It didn't seem that relevant, anyway. While she was ejecting the flash drive, another file caught her eye; a folder containing terabytes worth of .mp4 files, some labeled with intelligible words, but most of them named with weird code that Kaede couldn't understand. Not thinking, she saved the folder into her flash drive; terabytes were nothing to this drive. _I need to tell everyone about this._

* * *

"Hey, Shuichi-kun."

"Yeah? Oh! Kaede-chan!" The black-haired detective looked over at her. It was obvious he was holding himself back.

"Can you tell everyone to meet in the dining hall?" she asked. "I found something important, and I want to tell everyone at the same time. No more secrets."

"Okay." He nodded, and after a brief, but somewhat awkward silence, the two parted ways. Kaede's heart was pounding. She hoped that she didn't seem too different from the girl that Shuichi-kun knew. Her train of thought switched to Shuichi-kun. _I wonder...what kind of person he used to be? He must be experiencing something similar right now..._ She began making her way to the dining, asking whoever she encountered to gather anyone else they see to meet in the dining hall. And again, with footsteps resonating and heels clicking, the sixteen appeared in the dining hall. It was a sort of tradition, at this point.

"Hey, Akamatsu-san. So what did you find?" Amami-kun got straight to the point, wasting no time with this. The more quickly they figured out what was happening, the more quickely they'd figure out how to escape. Monokuma just letting them go was not plausible; not when he kept moving the goalposts.

"So...I was checking my room, because it'd been ransacked, and I found a flash drive. I found an unfinished lab report on it, and part of the procedure involved using VR." Kaede explained, projecting her voice to make sure that everyone could hear her. "I think it might have something to do with what happened."

"So you're one of the ones who wanted to be here!" Ouma-kun asserted, pointing a finger at Kaede. "Never trust the protagonist types!"

"You do know Monokuma was probably just saying that to make us distrust each other, right?" Harukawa-san rebutted, her voice serious and even like usual. Her glare drilled into Kaede's soul, and she wasn't even the target. Regardless, Ouma-kun didn't seem very affected by it, continuing to grin like the little gremlin he was. "Nobody would do this willingly. So, what was the topic of the lab report?" Harukawa-san turned to Kaede, her tone suddenly having a little bit more inflection than it did before.

"It was on cabin fever."

"I see..."

"Hey! I found a flash drive like that in my dorm, too!" Shuichi-kun added, gesturing his flash drive.

"Same here!" Momota-kun shouted.

"And when she checked it on the computers, she said she just _remembered_ her fucking username and password!" Iruma-san chimed in, gesturing at Kaede with a finger and glaring. "Lucky bitch! I'm a gorgeous girl genius and I still can't remember jack shit!"

"I think we're also 53 years in the future from the year we thought we were in. I think Shirogane bamboozled us!" Himiko exclaimed. She clearly checked.

"Hold on...it's 2154, right?" Kiibo asked, squinting. "That's what my realtime clock says."

"Huh? I thought it was 2101!" Momota-kun shouted, clearly bamboozled.

"..." Tsumugi-chan stayed silent.

"Did that bitch set us back 50 years for her shitty fanfiction?!"

"Huh?!" Chabashira-san went into offensive stance.

"Atua says...she didn't mean to."

"Kukuku...What an interesting turn of events..."

"I do not believe that we are all on the same page."

"Hold on a minute!" Shuichi-kun shouted, getting everyone's attention. "Kiibo, has the year on your realtime clock changed?"

"No. It's always been 2154, even in the simulation. I just thought that we all knew that."

"I see. Shirogane-san, I know this answer might sound incriminating, but it's important that we know this: Did you know the true year, all this time?"

Tsumugi-san stayed silent for several seconds, with everyone staring expectantly for her response. Kaede could tell who was beginning to have doubts about whether or not they knew the whole story, and who still remained angry at her.

"...Yes, but--" she finally answered, before being interrupted.

"Hah! I fucking knew it!" shouted Iruma-san. "That bitch's been playing us like fucking fiddles this whole time!"

"I knew it! You did it on purpose. _You did this to us!_ "

"So you knew _exactly_ what you were doing, all along...to think I had almost considered giving you my forgiveness for what you have done. I should boil you alive and dance on your remains." It was getting bad. The people who hated Tsumugi-san began shouting about their suspicions seemingly being confirmed, causing the room to dissolve into chaos as they began hating her more openly.

"No, that's wrong!" Kaede exclaimed, unable to take it anymore. The room went silent. She glanced at Gokuhara-kun and Yonaga-san, who simply nodded. "Tsumugi-chan didn't mean to do this!"

"Since when are you two on a first-name basis?" Momota-kun shouted, eyes wide with shock.

"A-Akamatsu-san?! Did you get hit in the head?! Tenko will help you!" Chabashira-san started shaking her.

"No. She told me what happened. Gokuhara-kun and Yonaga-san also heard." Gokuhara-kun and Yonaga-san nodded. Kaede managed to get Chabashira-san to stop shaking her, and began to explain what she was told by Tsumugi-chan. Amami-kun's face lit up with recognition.

"Yeah, that's right!" Everyone turned their eyes to Amami-kun, his eyes wide. "I kinda...it sounds so familiar. Like a missing piece of a puzzle that's just been recovered."

"I had the feeling that she was hiding something important, but...I'd never imagined it would be something of this scale. And the length and detail of the account would suggest that it's true." Kiibo confirmed, putting his hand on his chin.

"Yeah! She looked really sad and started crying when Tenko confronted her about it, like she was hiding something!" Chabashira-san added, recalling her little scuffle with Tsumugi-chan. "Tenko can always tell the emotions of those she spars with, and she felt bad!"

"Same here! She looked like she felt really bad about it!" Momota-kun crossed his arms. "I mean...I can't really forgive the actions she took _after_ that, like the fact she let it go on so long, but from the sound of it, she wasn't the one who got us stuck there."

"Why did you sit on something like that for so long?! That's really important!" Shuichi-kun asked, staring at Tsumugi-chan incredulously.

"...I didn't think anyone would believe me."

"Man, were you right about that!" Iruma-san crossed her arms. "I mean, what are the chances that something so convenient would just happen to come up? I mean, come on. You're not fooling _this_ gorgeous girl genius." She laughed crudely. "Nerdy bitch!"

"...you were right."

"However creepy you may percieve me to be, I am not an _idiot_ who just swallows whatever I am told, _Shirogane-san_."

"I mean...it is kind of creepy to write stories about your classmates, but, but! Atua has told me that it is true." Yonaga-san stood next to Tsumugi-chan and placed her hand on her shoulder.

"Gonta believe in her, as well!"

Kaede walked up next to Tsumugi-chan and put her hands on her hips. "I believe in her, too. She doesn't really have any reason to lie."

"I second that!" An unexpected gremlin decided to stand up for Shirogane-san as well. "As a liar, I know liars. It's not a lie." Kaede looks over at him. He didn't seem to be the type of person to do this...what was he getting at. "It's dangerous to trust people when you don't know for certain, but I _do_ know for certain that it's not a lie. Quit lookin' for the easy answers and go find that _truth_ you sheep all care so much about. Sheesh." He seems to know more than he's letting on...

"..." The room fell silent as everyone considered Ouma-kun's words. Kaede wasn't exactly sure how what he said was being taken, but it seemed to make those who were the most unforgiving Tsumugi-chan back off a little bit.

"And even if that was a lie, it's not fair to treat someone so harshly for crimes committed in a virtual world." Kiibo said matter-of-factly. "She has already paid her dues in that world, and I believe that part of the reason she neglected to tell us this important information was that she didn't forgive herself for what had happened. You don't have to forgive her, just lay off her a little bit."

"Heeeey! Kii-boy's got the right idea!" Kiibo didn't even tell him not to call him that. It seemed to be a combination of having just given up and the fact that Ouma-kun was agreeing with him.

"Stop with all the inspirational speeches already." Harukawa-san still seemed skeptical. "I don't care." The room fell silent. It looked like Harukawa-san had killed the mood. The tension could be cut with a knife. Just then, at the worst possible moment, the loathed bear popped in.

"Heey!"

"Fuck off!" He was met with instant resistance.

"Leave us alone already!"

"I'm not playing your game again!"

"What do you want?"

"Upupupu...I just came here to congratulate you on being the first group that lasted an entire month without anyone doing themselves in, but looks like you don't want it. So, bye!" That was the fastest that bear had ever left them alone, but his words still managed to seed the beginnings of despair into their hearts.

"...wait. What does that mean?" Kaede asked after several seconds of silence, staring at the spot where the bear stood when he said that.

"It appears to mean that he was not expecting us to live so long." Toujo-san replied, stating the obvious that had not yet really registered to anyone until one of them had said it aloud. "It would seem to me that he expected at least one of us to commit suicide."

"Hey, now that he's said that, I'm gonna start taking bets on who's gonna off themselves first!" Ouma-kun said, smiling inappropriately.

"Ouma-kun." Kaede raised an eyebrow at him. "Don't say that kind of thing." She scolded him seriously, not wavering or acting shocked. He was just doing it to get them all riled up, and she knew it.

"You no should joke about those things..."

"I'm just saying what everyone else is thinking!" To his surprise, nobody began shouting angrily, instead electing to glare at him coldly. "Aw, it's boring when you guys don't react." The boy walked away, his footsteps on the tile floor echoing down the hallway.

"...Anyway. I saw overheard something strange happen earlier today in the dining hall." Kaede started, breaking the silence that was created by Ouma-kun's inappropriate remarks. Toujo-san looked away. She knew exactly what happened. "I heard him asking Toujo-san to do something, and then when I walked into the common area a little later, everyone was drunk."

"..." Toujo-san elected to remain silent.

"So that wasn't just a weird-ass dream?" Momota put his hand behind his head. "Well, damn."

"I knew that juice tasted funny..." Yumeno-san mumbled, raising an eyebrow at Toujo-san. "Why didn't you reject his request?"

"As the Ultimate Maid, I must fulfill all requests made of me, and...well, he had made a request."

"Well, I'm glad I wasn't involved in that shit!" Iruma-san gloated. Kaede averted her eyes; she very clearly remembered Iruma-san having taken off some of her clothing.

"Do you remember anything from between about...I shall say, 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM? Because I do not." Shinguji-kun seemed puzzled. Kaede failed to hold back a chuckle as she remembered the "Ultimate Ant." "What is it that you find so amusing?"

Kaede started laughing some more, unable to contain herself. "I-I'm s-s-sorry, y-you j-just f-forgot your t-talent!" She broke down into an uncontrollable laughing fit, clutching her stomach when it began to give her pains. Regardless, she couldn't make herself stop. "Y-you said y-ou we-re th-the-the U-Ultimate A-Ant!" Shinguji-kun did not seem to find this fact as amusing as Kaede did, instead staring at her blankly.

"l had hoped that whatever transgressions I had made in the time period during which I was apparently inebriated would not taint my reputation, but it seems such hope is futile." He held his head in his hands.

"Uh, no offense, but it's kind of hard to get worse than "serial killer," reputation-wise." Hoshi-kun joked, inhaling his cigarette. Shinguji-kun glared.

"Please be silent."

After dinner, when they dispersed and went back to their dorms, it was already nighttime. Kaede walked up to a door very similar in appearance to hers, but when she opened it, she noticed that it had no lock. In fact, it had no space for a key to lock said door. Could this really be a dorm room? It didn't lock. She opened it out of curiosity, wondering who slept in this room, and was greeted by a horrifying sight; the horrifying sight Amami-kun had described when Momota-kun experienced the nightwalker. This was Shinguji-kun's dorm room, and had his eyes not been open he would have appeared to already have fallen asleep, which he had. He lay motionless his signature mask and white pajamas, sleeping on his back underneath a blanket. It was terrifying. _Oh my God...he...he really_ does _sleep with his eyes open...I wonder how Gokuhara-kun dealt with it when their hair got tied together..._ She shut the door without a word. That wasn't terrifying at _all_. When she entered her own dorm room, she went to bed extremely grateful that her room had a lock. She did not like the idea of being walked in on eight times a night while she slept. She didn't really think about the absence of locks on some of the dorms in very much depth.

In the morning, Kaede had a rather rude awakening. By a rude awakening, it did not mean that she had learned some unpleasant truth, rather, she was quite literally woken up by the sound of someone banging at her door. The learning of unpleasant truths had occurred the day before, but it could also be argued that the truth of someone banging at her door was also quite unpleasant, especially in that moment. She sat up and lagged for a little bit while getting out of bed, reluctant to leave the warmth provided by her blankets. Looking out the window, she figured it would be better not to know what time it was. She walked over to the door and opened it to find Momota-kun on the other side. His hand probably hurt from all that knocking on the door.

"Oh! Good morning, Momota-kun!" Kaede greeted him, attempting to make her hair slightly more presentable. "Uh...what's wrong?"

"Morning, Akamatsu-san." He shrugged his shoulders. "Nothing's wrong, I just wanted to say hi. Well...now that I think about it, I'm kinda curious if you found anything else on that flash drive you found. Anything about who we used to be." His inquiry tied her intestines in a knot as she remembered what was on her flash drive. What she was planning to do. Should she tell the truth, or would it be better to lie? _No. No more lies. Not in this situation._

"Oh yeah. I did find some stuff, and honestly, it's kind of...disturbing." She shifted uncomfortably. "I don't think I was a very good person before."

Momota-kun nodded understandingly. "Same here. Honestly, I..." He, too, found himself shifting. "I found a flash drive with some messed up shit on it. And then...I remembered. I remembered that I wanted to kill people." He noticed Kaede's widening eyes. "Oh, but I guess yours was nothing like that, huh?"

"Actually..." She averted her eyes from Momota-kun. His description of his past self was just a little too familiar for comfort. Too similar to how she used to be. "I was pretty similar. I found an entire manifesto on how I wanted to make...to make humanity suffer. And...I suddenly felt really angry at everyone, for no reason at all." To Kaede's surprise, he beamed at her.

"Looks like we had something in common, then! Man..." He shook his head, his tone turning more serious. "When you think about it, it gets kinda messed up when you think that this might have been the...the best possible outcome for everyone. It makes me sick." He swallowed, his face turning pale. "Anyway, that old me isn't welcome back here." He smiled weakly, trying to lighten the mood. But how much could one lighten the mood when the both of them had recently learned that they used to be horrible monsters? However, they would never really know, because it was at that time when they were interrupted by someone who neither of them really wanted to see in that moment; Ouma-kun.

"Ooh! What did you find?" he shouted at them from down the hall. "Were you serial killers? Huh? Huh? Huh?" The short boy shoved himself between them, rapidly spinning his body to alternate between being in Kaede's face and Momota-kun's face. After a few seconds of this, he seemed to have made himself dizzy and stopped.

"Nothing like that. We both just found out some disturbing shit about our old selves." Momota-kun rolled his eyes. "But rest assured! That freakin' psychopath isn't coming back, even if some of his memories are!" Momota-kun smacked Ouma-kun's back, likely as an attempt to be give the smaller boy a pat on the back, causing Ouma-kun to stumble. Kaede could tell that it knocked Ouma-kun's breath from his lungs.

"Ow." The purple-haired boy grinned creepily. "Are you sure about that? How do you know? Nishinishi..." Momota-kun furrowed his eyebrows and bared his teeth, contorting his face into a horrifying expression of rage. His constricted pupils were focused on Ouma-kun's shit-eating grin. Kaede could feel the absolute hatred in his eyes, in his glare, and she wasn't even the one it was directed at. _This isn't going to end well._ He pulled his fist back, preparing to throw a punch to wipe that evil grin off of the smaller boy's face, when suddenly, he stopped, as though a thought had occurred to him. His face relaxed, and he dropped his fist.

"No. I'm not gonna give in. I'm not gonna let myself get consumed by that hate again. I'm not that person anymore." He suddenly spun around and walked away. When Kaede turned back to the smaller boy, having been too distracted by Momota-kun's outburst to really pay much attention to him, she thought she could see relief in his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter feels a little longer than normal, and I honestly just end chapters when I can't think of a good transition between scenes. I'm really happy people are reading this, and I hope you guys continue reading. ^^ Some of the dialogue is a little ambigous.


	12. Fridged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a rift forming in the group. It seems that they're not even allowed to go through an entire mealtime without incident, as evidenced by Der Flohwaltzer. And there's...someone in the fridge.

Kaede could tell that there was a clear rift forming in the group between those who trusted Tsumugi-san's story, and those who did not. This rift did not really coincide with those who remained angry with her, either; Chabashira-chan, Momota-kun, and Kiibo, while not really forgiving Tsumugi-chan for not telling them what happened immediately after, as well as thinking she was creepy for writing about real people and over all not really understanding her that much, they still treated her like a human being. Kaede felt like she was in the same boat; not quite forgiving her for what she put them through, but not quite as angry as she was before. Meanwhile, Gonta-kun, Angie-chan, Amami-kun, and apparently, Atua as well, completely forgave her as soon as they heard her story. Kaede didn't really understand it, but at least they were better to Tsumugi-chan than she was to herself. Ouma-kun's stance on her was...indeterminate. And as for the other seven people, they were completely and absolutely fucking pissed at Tsumugi-chan; their treatment of her could be described as simply avoiding her at best, and active cruelty at worst. Kaede could tell that Shuichi-kun was trying his best to remain neutral towards her, but after everything he'd been through, his resentments towards the girl were seeping through anyway. At least he hadn't told her that she should be dead or _actually tried to make her that way;_ Kaede distinctly remembered more than one occasion where Gonta-kun literally had to pry Harukawa-san off Tsumugi-chan's neck.

Kaede entered the dining hall. The echo of her footsteps through the hallway seemed a little emptier that morning. It was very peaceful; Kiibo was helping Toujo-san set the table for breakfast. Kaede walked over to greet them.

"Morning, guys." she greeted, smiling at them. Kiibo waved at her and smiled.

"Good morning, Akamatsu-san. Did you sleep well?" Toujo-san asked, smiling back at her.

"Yeah, I did. What about you?"

"Oh, I suppose that it was alright. I noticed that not all of the dorm rooms lock, including mine. I wonder why."

"Oh, I noticed that, too!" Kaede perked up, looking more focused. "And I, uh...figured that out a really creepy way." She chuckled to herself and placed her hand behind her head, remembering that encounter with Shinguji-kun, the memory of hia blank gaze still creeping her out.

"What happened? Did someone walk in on you and start watching you sleep?" Kiibo asked, putting his hand on his chin.

"Did some degenerate male walk in on you changing?" Tenko-san looked horrified.

Kaede shook her head, smiling sheepishly and laughing a little bit. "No, nothing like that. I, uh...let's just say I can confirm what Amami-kun said about Shinguji. I am a changed woman after seeing that." She looked to the side.

"Uh...what was that, again?" Chabashira-chan asked, raising an eyebrow.

"He kind of...sleeps with his eyes open." Kiibo looked at his feet.

That is...arguably worse, depending on what stage of undress you may be in." Toujo-san muttered.

"It was actually pretty...horrifying. He looked like a corpse." Kiibo scratched his head. "And given the circumstances, that's a lot more distressing than it'd usually be."

"I guess you can say that he...sleeps like the dead, then, huh?" Kaede joked, when everyone else walked in.

"Who's dead? Is someone dead?" Ouma-kun chimed in, grinning like a child. "I was getting kinda bored of all the people being alive! A dead body would really spice things up, don'tcha think?"

"That is not funny!" Kiibo chided, pointing at both Ouma-kun and Kaede.

"Really now..." Tsumugi-chan commented, looking a little bit pale.

"You're one to talk, Junko Enoshima LIII!"

"I guess you're right." She shrugged, still looking a little bit nervous.

"Didn't you defend her yesterday?" Harukawa-san reminded, staring right into his soul. _She's really not taking any shit..._

"Yeah, but I'm a liar!"

"That is not a quality one should take pride in." Shinguji-kun fiddled with the pendant on his uniform.

"Better than being a siscon serial killer! Nishinishi!" He grinned, putting his hands behind his head. "Even if somebody else made you that way!"

"Kukuku...It is better than dying alone and unwanted à la hydraulic press."

"Is it really, though?"

"You do realize that you're actively jeopardizing your reputation as a liar by saying this, right?" Hoshi-kun pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

"Oopsies! Silly me!"

"Also, doesn't being a serial killer, even a fictional one, kind of mean you die alone and unwanted anyway?"

"Uh...is anyone hungry? I sure am! Nyahahaha!" Angie-chan interrupted, attempting to lighten up the mood. It just turned things in a strange direction.

"...Does anyone here smoke weed?" Amami-kun asked, putting his hand behind his head and grimacing. This probably contributed.

"Gentlemen no do drugs!" Gonta-kun replied, holding his hands up in alarm.

"I mean, Angie-chan clearly has the munchies..." Himiko-chan joked, smiling.

"Is she hungry for hands?" Tsumugi-chan asked enthusiastically, making a reference nobody else understood. "Is it a hunger that only hands can satisfy?"

"I am afraid I cannot fulfill that request..." Toujo-san remarked. Understandably, the direction of this conversation had made her rather...concerned.

"Mmm...not hands specifically, but Atua says He wouldn't mind a blood sacrifice! Just a pint or two!"

"Uh!" Kaede exclaimed. _That's definitely not the right answer._

"Hey! I just realized! If you inject instant brownie mix into your veins and then let them get cook by your body heat, in a few days you can cut them out and have brownies! Hahaha! I'm a genius! I think Atua might like those, don'tcha think?" Miu-chan proposed, as though there was absolutely nothing wrong with this.

"Hey, quick question. _WHAT THE FUCK?!_ " Kaito-kun shouted, his face contorted in a grotesque manner from fear.

"Make sure to place them on a plate surrounded by salt after extraction so that evil spirits cannot steal them." Shinguji-kun added, gesturing with his finger. He was joking...at least, that's what Kaede hoped. She really hoped he was joking. "Unless attracting spirits is your aim, of course."

"That's right!" Angie-chan exclaimed, beaming. "Atua would love them!" And she was definitely not.

" _WHAT THE FUCKING HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!_ " Kaito-kun screamed.

"What are you saying? That's a great idea!" Ouma-kun interjected, his eyes sparkling.

"You guys...do know I was fuckin' kidding...right?" Miu-chan squeaked, backing away slowly.

"Aw, so no blood brownies???" Ouma-kun whined, pouting. His eyes indicated that he did, in fact, know that she was joking.

"What a shame..." _Please be kidding. Please be kidding. Please be kidding._ Kaede couldn't tell from his facial expression whether or not he was kidding; as most of his face was covered by the mask.

"Th-that's enough! We're not making any vampire brownies!" Kaito-kun finally spat, his hand shaking a little bit in terror.

"You guys are...disturbed." Hoshi-kun lit his cigarette and inhaled, side-eyeing the group. _Isn't he underage?_

"C'mon, Hoshi-chan! Let those of us who nobody'd really miss if we died have a little fun!" Ouma-kun protested, scrunching his eyebrows.

"Are you including Angie-chan in that?" Yumeno-chan scowled at Ouma-kun, clearly unamused. She'd definitely missed her.

"Hey! No should say such things! Gonta would miss Iruma-san!"

"Nah, she's the only one of us who's not joking...right?" Ouma-kun smiled darkly, unable to hide the uncertainty in his pinpricked eyes. "You freaks better be joking."

"Kukuku...The beauty here is that the world may never know!" Shinguji-kun flung his arms out to the side and threw his head back.

"See, this is why nobody'd miss you if you died." Ouma-kun chided, pointing at Shinguji-kun.

"Listen up!" Kaito-kun suddenly shouted, holding up a clenched fist. The room became silent. "Does anyone else want food or not?! 'Cuz if this keeps up, I'm eating all the fucking food, you got that?!"

"That is correct. It would be a shame if Momota-kun ate all of the food, would it not?" Toujo-san added. And thus commenced the actual eating of the food. The menu that day consisted of cinnamon rolls and fruit, with Toujo-san's cooking being amazing as always; the fruit was cut into so many cute shapes, and the cinnamon rolls just melt in one's mouth! They were so good...and sweet...it almost felt like things were normal, as though everything was going to be alright, when the tune of _Der Flohwaltzer_ blasted through the speakers, and within the first four bars, the world came to a halt. Kaede began clawing at her neck in an attempt to remove a noose that wasn't there, and she was yanked back by her neck until her chair crashed on the floor, the world she knew slipping away behind her as she flew backwards into what could only be described as "Her Own Personal Hell."

_I can't move. I can't breathe. I can't think. I can't move. I can't breathe. I can't think. I can't move. I can't breathe. I can't think. I can't move. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't--_

And her whole world was painted black.

 

 

> _Who am I?_
> 
> _I extend a hand. A hand that belongs to no one._
> 
> _To take hold of my existence--_

_"Kaede-chan!?"_

_"Akamatsu-san!"_

_"Akamatsu-chan?!"_

_"Akamatsu-san...what's wrong?!"_

_"Wake up! Please!"_

_"_ **_Kaede-chan!_ ** _"_

Kaede opened her eyes to white light. _Am I...dead?_ Someone was calling her name. She squinted at the light's brightness; it made her eyes water. She felt someone's warm hands gently holding her arm. _I wonder...is this...the afterlife...?_

"Akamatsu-san, wake up!" Her head suddenly turned at the loud smacking sound. Her hand made its way to her stinging cheek. She still couldn't see very well, only seeing blurry figures darkness in the blinding light. Something was sticking to her neck; when she made to feel it to see what it was, her hands were violently held behind her back as she was flipped over and pinned face-down to the floor. The first thing she saw clearly was the tiled floor of the dining hall.

"No!" a male voice shouted. She couldn't quite tell who it belonged to.

"Don't you fucking touch your fucking neck, Bakamatsu! You clawed it so fucking hard you got blood all over the fucking dining hall! What the fuck happened?!" Miu-chan's voice shrieked from behind her head, but she could tell it wasn't Miu-chan who was pinning her down.

Kaede attempted to turn her head, but her neck screamed at her in resistance. "Safe, sane, and consensual, bitch!"

"Ugh..." Kaede moaned, immobilised by her current situation. "What happened...?" Her head throbbed.

"You fucking screamed and started clawing your neck when that fucking bear blasted off-key piano music from the speakers at a billion decibals." She hesitated. "I'm...just glad you passed out before you saw what he played on the monitor." Miu-chan's voice was uncharacteristically gentle.

"Jeez, Iruma-san. You sounded almost nice." Kaito-kun commented. It sounded like he was the one pinning her down.

"W-what the fuck do you think I'd say?! She fucking clawed her neck and passed the fuck out!"

"...Should we really be handling her like this?" Tsumugi-chan squeaked.

"I hate to agree with the mastermind and all, but you guys are being really rough." Amami-kun affirmed. His voice was soothing, but hearing it just made her tense up more out of sheer guilt. She killed him. She _killed_ him. She deserved it. _She killed him._

"Shit! She got all stiff! _NO, DON'T DIE!_ " Kaito-kun flipped her over, but before he could hug her, Chabashira-chan kicked him in the head, causing him to drop her. Her head fell like a shot put ball onto the tile floor.

"Degenerate male! Don't you dare handle girls like that!"

"You're the one who caused her to hit her head..." Kaito-kun rebuked. Chabashira-chan grabbed Kaede's head and set it on her lap. Kaede felt a little dizzy from her impact with the floor.

"Akamatsu-san, are you okay?" She felt somewhat woozy. "Speak to me!"

"...it's fine." she replied, attempting to sit up, but her were pinned to Chabashira-chan's lap. It was really firm...man, she was finally able to lay down in a girl's lap and she wasn't even able to enjoy it properly!

"Tenko highly doubts that." She shook her head. "You lost a lot of blood!"

"Gonta sorry he no could help more!" Gonta-kun apologised, sitting on his knees next to Kaede. _He's so pure...The world does not deserve him._

Kaede flinched a little bit when that thought popped into her head. _Where did that come from? That's...that's not how I think!_ She clenched her fists, drawing the worries of those around her. She couldn't quite make out what they were saying to her; it was as though she had suddenly been plunged underwater. The light shining into the dome had a somewhat hazy quality to it, and everything soon faded to white as the distinction between shadow and light faded to nothingness. She felt the vague sense that something had poked her in the arm, but that sensation felt so far away that she didn't really notice it. And the world fell away as the sensation of the tile floor beneath her faded to nothing.

 

 

> _Nothing._
> 
> _No light. No sound._
> 
> _No form. No voice._
> 
> _No knowledge of who I am._
> 
> _...Who I am?_
> 
> _Who am I?_
> 
> _I extend a hand. A hand that belongs to no one._
> 
> _To take hold of my existence--_
> 
> _This is me._
> 
> _My name is..._
> 
> _. . ._

"Hey! Akamatsu-chan! Wake up!" An annoying, gratingly nasal voice echoed from the void. No direction. No form. It sounded from everywhere and from nowhere. She opened her eyes, and the most annoying of her classmates materialized before her. He had no name, only a voice and a form. "Hey! Hey!! Hey!!!" She stared blankly at him, reality beginning to distinguish itself to her once more. Kaede blinked. Reality became more defined. She was oddly at rest in the white-walled room, despite the disruptive person leaning five centimeters from her face. His breath smelled like grape soda.

"...ugh...where am I?" Kaede moaned, sitting herself up in the white, wire-framed bed. Her hand went to her neck; no wound, no bandages. She was a little dizzy. _I suppose they had weird quick-heal stuff here._

"Heaven." Ouma-kun grinned. "That's a lie. This is the infirmary."

Kaede rolled her eyes. Two minutes into regaining her sense of existence, and it was already wavering again. "So...what happened? I kinda just...passed out."

"Yeah, Harukawa-chan decided to sedate you so you souldn't struggle while we got you here." Ouma-kun said, while examining his nails. His demeanor suddenly changed. "By the way, this place has some cool medicine stuff! It was really weird to watch! Your skin just zipped itself up like a zipper!" he enthused, his eyes taking on a childish glint. _That's...an unsettling image._

"Uh..."

"Oh, and Toujo-chan's coming to give you some water or something." He pouted. "I wanted to offer you some Panta, but then Chabashira-chan flipped me and told me it'd rot your soul..." Was it just her, or did he actually look disappointed.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Kaede asked. Her tone changed, her expression growing somewhat dark.

"Nishinishi!" He just giggled and put his hands behind his head. "Find out for yourself!"

"Ouma-kun, did I not already tell you not to bother Akamatsu-san?" Toujo-san entered the room, holding a tray with a pitcher of water and a glass. The glass was very intricate, reflecting light in such a way that it looked like crystal.

"I'm not bothering her, right?? Right? Right? Right?"

"You are now."

"Wahhh! You're so mean to me!" he cried, summoning his crocodile tears as usual.

"Your water, Akamatsu-san." Toujo-san set the tray on the table. "Make sure to drink all of it; we were able to treat the wound, but the fluids you lost must still be replaced." She poured some water from the pitcher into the glass and handed it to Kaede. "And do not worry, I have thoroughly cleaned up the dining hall."

"...thank you." Kaede took the glass and sipped from it in a stunned silence. She felt a little bad that Toujo-san had to clean up that mess. But her regrets were interrupted by banging footsteps and shouting from outside the infirmary.

"OH MY GOD! THERE'S A BODY IN THE FRIDGE!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took for fucking ever. Hope you like it! More characterisation and thinking! And more clues, too. Note: the actual Roman Numeral for 50 is L, not V. V is five. It just fucking bothers me that Spike Chunsoft used the wrong numeral. ><


	13. Hollow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today was the first day they were able to laugh genuinely. And with the walls finally coming down, Kaede realizes just how much she and everyone else are hurting, renewing her resolve to find the truth. Also, she barely knows these people.

"What's going on? I need to get ther--" Kaede fell out of the bed, attempting to crawl out to see what was happening despite Toujo-san's protests.

"Absolutely not. You must rest, Akamatsu-san." Toujo-san blocked her path and set her back on the bed. "You have not yet fully recovered. I cannot allow you to exert yourself in such a manner."

"B-but--" Kaede protested, her words falling upon Toujo-san's deaf ears.

"If you so desire, I shall carry you. But I cannot allow you to exert yourself at this point in time." Nodding reluctantly, Kaede agreed to allow Toujo-san to carry her on her back, and they rushed to the kitchen with Ouma-kun in tow. Kaede peered over Toujo-san's shoulder at the crowd that stood gaping at the fridge. Inside sat Shinguuji-kun, clad in what appeared to be his pajamas. He seemed to be dead, his glazed yellow eyes staring blankly into space.

"Oh my God...is he...?" Kaede whimpered, her voice trembling in horror.

"Only one way to find out!" Ouma-kun snickered enthusiastically, and took out a pair of scissors. "If you're really dead, then you won't mind if I cut off _all_ your hair! Y'hear that, Shinguji-chan? You're gonna be bald! Nishinishi!" He grabbed a lock of the fridged cryptid's hair, and the answer to his query was immediately discovered, to Kaede's relief.

" _Absolutely_ _not_." Shinguji-kun snatched the smaller boy's hand, his eyes now much more attentive. He glared at everyone. "Can I not take a nap in... _why am I inside of the refrigerator?"_ The lanky boy suddenly noticed his surroundings, turning his head and looking around in confusion. He slid out of the fridge and blinked, then wiped his face and examined his hand. "Hmm..."

"...why were you taking a nap in the refrigerator...?" Kaede asked apprehensively, nudging Toujo-san to put her, who obliged.

"...I assure you that this was not the intended location for my rest." Everyone looked at Ouma-kun accusingly.

"Hey! You guys really think I did this? You're so meeeeaaaaaaaaan!" sobbed the purple-haired boy, summoning his crocodile tears.

"We all know you're lying. Can't we eat without having to see this guy?" Himiko-san chided, furrowing her eyebrows. She crossed her arms.

"Dude, I literally thought someone stuffed a body in the fridge." Kaito-kun scolded, a cold sweat beading on his forehead. "Doesn't matter if it's the dead body of the crazy guy, that just makes it more likely to be a dead body. And I think we've all had enough of dead bodies for a lifetime." A lot of the others nodded in agreement. Kaede turned to Tsumugi-chan, who was noticeably silent. Her eyes were wide, her form stiff and face paler than usual. Looking around the room, she noticed similar expressions in everyone in the room except for Harukawa-san, whose stone-cold expression remained unchanged, and Hoshi-kun, who seemed fairly weirded out himself.

"I guess you can say he got... _fridged._ " Ouma-kun joked, his smile far wider than smiles are supposed to go. It almost resembled a Jeff the Killer smile...not that. Kaede was familiar with that. Intimately. From a tween Creepypasta phase. Of course.

"Shut up." Kaito-kun grumbled, with his arms crossed and face all scrunched up.

"...Anyway, I don't think this is that important." Kaede commented, raising her eyebrow and smiling sheepishly. "It's not that big a deal."

"I know who put him into the fridge! It was Atua! Nyahahahaha!" Angie-chan revealed. "I would know, because He gave me the honor of being his vessel!" Everyone just stared at her. _She really does believe this, doesn't she..._

"So you're basically saying you made me almost piss myself because 'Atua' told you to." Miu-chan grumbled, glaring at Angie-chan's smiling face. "Just say you're mad at him and go. I mean, I'd be."

"It was the will of Atua!" she insisted, clasping her hands together and smiling.

"Wow! Y'know, I'm starting to think Atua's pretty cool!" Ouma-kun gushed.

"Can somebody please just kill me already..." Harukawa-chan mumbled, her eyes glazed over. The black-haired girl slouched over, rolling her eyes. "You guys are ridiculous."

"Shinguji-kun, although I do sympathize with your predicament, I wonder: What does cold feel like?" Kiibo inquired. "Also, how does the refrigerator smell? I have always wondered that."

"Not quite the question I was thinking of, but now I'm a little curious. What does it feel like to be put in the fridge?" Hoshi-kun mused, holding his cigarette in his hand. He looked up at the now-indignant Shinguji-kun in amusement. _Is that really making him more mad than being stuffed in the fridge.?_

"It is difficult to explain." he replied flatly. "You would get a clearer answer from a corpse." He seemed quite irritated. Anybody in his situation would be.

"Yeesh..." Kaito-kun muttered, putting his hand behind his head. "Guess someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today."

"Oh my God!" And then the weirdest thing happened: everyone started laughing, including Kaede. It was the first day that anyone had laughed, really laughed, since they'd woken up. It was already turning out to be a better day than she thought it'd be, for all of them. Of course, any day that Kaede didn't wake up screaming counted as a good day given the circumstances. It made her hopeful for the future, gave her hope that everything was going to be alright.

The crowd dispersed as Shinguji-kun walked off to his dorm, probably to go back to sleep. Kaede lingered for a while, drinking from a cup of water and thinking about nothing in particular, about everything and nothing, and she decided that she was going to make things right once and for all. She exited the dining hall and walked to Amami-kun's door room; she was getting good at remembering which door was whose. She stopped, and politely rapped the door just a few times, then waited in silemce. _I need to make things right. Even...even if my trap wasn't what killed him._

"Hello? Oh, hey, Akamatsu-san! How've you been?" The green-haired boy smiled at her, as though she hadn't done anything to him. Well, technically, she hadn't. But still.

"Hi, Amami-kun. I just needed to say something." she said, avoiding his eyes. _You can do this. It's just an apology._

"What is it?" He asked, his smile fading. "If it's about--" He was interrupted by Kaede's low bowing.

"I'm really sorry for what happened in the killing game! Even--Even if what I did didn't actually get you, I still tried! I still got to that point! I'm so sorry!" She could see him shifting a little bit.

"Hey! It's okay! You were just trying to catch the mastermind!" he reassured, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Besides, it didn't even hurt. I 'died' instantly. And besides besides, you weren't even the actual culprit, anyway." Kaede looked up at him when he removed his hand from her shoulder. He was waving them back and forth in an attempt to reassure her.

"I just..." Kaede stood up straight, but looked down at her feet. "I just didn't feel right about it, is all. I still tried. I was still driven to murder."

"I was never mad at you." Amami-kun smiled calmly. "I don't resent anyone for what happened in there, and I don't think anyone else is mad at you, either. Because in the end...none of it was even real, y'know?" He sets his hands out to the sides and smiles, before his expression suddenly turns eerie. "I'm not mad at anyone but the mastermind. The real mastermind."

Kaede shivers a little bit. It was quite unsettling, but she decided it to just let it happen because of what happened the last time she took matters into her own hands. "Yeah. I guess..." She smiles. "Man, I feel a lot better now, knowing you aren't mad." And it was true. Her chest felt a great deal lighter than it had for a long time now, the great weight of her guilt having been lifted.

"I'm just glad you're okay after this morning." He smiled. They continued on about inanities, gossiping about their classmates and lightheartedly theorising about the outside world. She realized that this was the first normal conversation she's had in a while, with no shouting or screaming or fighting or any other weirdness.

"Aaaa! I ship it!" Tsumugi-chan interrupted. Kaede seemed wary, but Amami-kun smiled at her cheerfully, as though he was speaking to an old friend.

"Hey, Tsumugi-chan! How's it been?" He waved at her, greeting Tsumugi-chan in a very laid-back manner. _He's...so relaxed...I wish I could be like that._

"Hi, Rantaro-kun! I just wanted to say that--"

"Tsumugi-chan, you've apologized to me eighteen times already." He interrupted teasingly. "I was never mad at you."

Tsumugi-chan shook her head. "N-no, it's not that, but thanks anyway..." The bespectacled otaku looked down at her feet. "I just wanted to ask if you wanted...to cosplay...with me?" She smiled sheepishly. "I mean, you don't have to, but I, uh--"

"That sounds great!" He said, smiling back at the sheepish girl. "Hey, Akamatsu-san, do you wanna join?"

"..." Kaede pondered this a little bit. _I...still haven't forgiven Tsumugi-chan entirely...but...I feel like she deserves another chance. And if Amami-kun's giving her anothet chance, then I have to, too._ "Sure!" She said, smiling at the two of them. "That'd be great!"

"R-really?" gushed the dark-haired girl, who was drooling slightly. "Y...you'd do cosplay with someone like me?" She looked like a kid in a candy store...this was the happiest Kaede had ever seen her.

"Yeah! It'll be fun." And they went down the hall, where Tsumugi-chan accosted and managed to convince Tenko-chan, Ouma-kun, Gonta-kun, and, somehow, Shinguuji-kun and Hoshi-kun, to join them to an empty room where Tsumugi-chan had already laid out a ton of cosplay stuff.

"Okay! So I just thought of the perfect cosplay for all of you to do as a group!" Tsumugi-chan announced to the mostly-confused group of people.

"Hey! Hey! Hey!" Ouma-kun nagged, pulling at Tsumugi-chan's sleeve like a gremlin. "Can I be Waluigi???"

"Well, I was thinking that would fit more for Shinguuji-kun, but we could have two Waluigis."

"Ooh! Shinguuji-chan's build does work well for that!" Ouma-kun agreed, grinning evilly as he examined his nails. "But he would also work as like, a Heian-era Go master."

"Oh my God! You're right! Let's begin! Tenko-chan would make an amazing Undyne! And Rantaro-kun, you should be Light Yagami! And Kaede-chan, you can be Sailor Moon!" The otaku rambled, her glasses reflecting light ominously as she became totally engrossed in her cosplay. Everyone else was backing away slowly.

"She's drooling..." Tenko-chan commented.

"This...may have been a mistake..." Hoshi-kun muttered, pulling his hat down over his head.

"Just one more question, Shinguuji-kun: are you circumcised? I need to know before I can decide your cosplay." Her eyes had a terrifying glint in them. Waluigi time.

* * *

Kaede barely escaped with her life, much less what remained of her sanity. _I suppose it was a good bonding exercise...but now I kinda have an aversion to cosplay...I'm not gonna tell her that._ She went back to the common area; it was about noon. _Everything that happened today was just within the span of four hours, huh? Time's really dragging its feet._ Someone had set up a keyboard and a stool by the window. She ran to it like a child. _It's not really a piano, but...I've been getting so rusty...I need this!_ She turned the keyboard on, and holographic sheet music appeared on the music rack. It was _Clair de Lune._ One of the chairs in the room had been moved to be close to the electronic keyboard; this was planned. She picked up a note on the keyboard and read the unmistakable childish scrawl crayoned on the paper:

> _It's for you!_

"Ouma-kun...?" The picture on the bottom in place of a signature gave it away. Would someone like him really do something like this? She checked the keyboard for any pranks that could have been rigged to it, and then the chair. Nothing except for the note. She pressed one of the keys. Just the sound of a digital piano rang out. She'd always found the sound of digital instruments to be somewhat unsettling, but the familiarity of the sound after she hadn't played in so long brought her some peace. She wondered when he could have set this up; surely not while they were stuck with the Cosplay Maniac. Her thoughts were interrupted by Shuichi-kun entering the room.

"Kaede-chan!" he exclaimed with a start. He stopped in his tracks. _He's not wearing his hat...and I just noticed his hair's a bit longer than it was in the simulation._ She berated herself for being so inattentive to the others for so long; of course his hair'd have grown.

"Shuichi-kun..." She grabbed her arm and smiled at him. "Do you...want to hear me play?" she asked nervously. "It's... _Clair de Lune._ Like I promised." The midday sun shone through the dome, bathing the room in bright sunlight.

Shuichi-kun's eyes widened; she could tell he was surprised. But not in a bad way. "I..." He fiddled with his hair, as if he were trying to pull the hat he wasn't wearing over his eyes. "I'd love that." And at once, she could see all the regret and terror and sorrow in his face begin to fade away. He smiled at her, a real smile.

"Okay." Kaede smiled back at him. She sat down at the piano and began to play, becoming engrossed in the calming tune. Even though she was a little rusty, she was able to play the song with little effort. Such is the power of the Ultimate Pianist, she supposed. Kaede payed special attention to the notes she played, so that she wouldn't mess it up. As the last notes echoed through the common area, she looked up to realize that she had a larger audience than she'd originally thought. The room fell into a brief silence before everyone began clapping. She turned to her audience, and as she looked over her friends, Kaede realized just how long it had been since any of them had really been able to just relax, to just live. And most of all, she saw the glitter in Shuichi-kun's eyes as his regrets melted away.

"That was beautiful, Kaede-chan!" Shuichi-kun cheered, clapping his hands and smiling. She noticed a small tear welled up in his eye that he blinked away as he applauded for her performance.

And for just one shining moment, the walls came down around their hearts and they were able to feel, just _feel_ , without restraint. But then...the applause died down. And the pain returned. The despair, the anxiety, the regret and the loneliness. The sadness, the bereavement, the terror and unease, but most of all, the inexplicable, simultaneous _emptiness_ all came back, and although everyone was still smiling, their smiles immediately became forced, the indescribable glowing feeling that had just existed but a second ago now gone forever. And in the end, she wondered if it had ever even existed at all. She heard her heart beating rapidly as she talked to the others about this and that, laughing and talking as though everything was okay when all she could feel was an inexplicable emptiness in her chest.

Toujo-san announced that she was going to make lunch, with an expression tinged with a sense of emptiness. Kaede realized that her movements were almost robotic, as though she were an AI in a video game, and had likely been that way ever since they'd woken up. _Why hadn't I noticed this before? I've been so caught up in myself that...that I didn't even notice how anybody else felt. I was trying so hard to lead the group that I...I didn't even really pay attention to anybody else's needs._ She breathed in and out; the room had its usual ambient chatter, but for the first time in actual months, Kaede noticed the emptiness in their interactions. _How long has this been going on? Event though I've been here the whole time...I don't really know any of them, do I? I saw the footage of the class trials...but even then, I don't think I'll ever understand what they went through. What anyone went through._

Kaede glanced over to a squabble between two of her classmates; it was Kaito-kun and Ouma-kun, as usual. The atmosphere of the room was kind of heavy, blocking out anything from really. It was almost suffocating. It was almost like inside, everyone had given up hope, and that they were just going on mechanically for the sake of someone else, even in the cases of Angie-chan, Tenko-chan, and Gonta-kun. The food Toujo-san cooked was amazing, as it always was, but Kaede found herself unable to truly enjoy it, and realized that she hadn't been able to enjoy it for a while now. Every day simply consisted of waking up, three meals with some time to wander aimlessly around the area, and then going back to sleep. _Sleep...Kiibo doesn't even have a real dorm room._ She realized this as she finished the last of her food, which as usual the robot could but watch. The world felt colder, somehow clearer and more mechanical. It was all so...repetitive. She stood up and made a little small talk, speaking about nothings. When the room dispersed, she wondered how long Shuichi-kun had walked that way. His step had more confidence, but also a certain emptiness seen more in Harukawa-san and Hoshi-kun's gaits. Perhaps it was the effect of having all his friends die before him, with nothing he could do to protect them besides solving their murders after the fact.

Kaede found herself grabbing Shuichi-kun's sleeve, who turned around to look at her. It had been a while; she realized that despite how much they liked and trusted each other, she didn't even really know who he was. Not really. She didn't really know anybody.

"Hey, Shuichi-kun..."

"Oh, hi Kaede-chan." He looked back at her with wide eyes. She was really glad that he'd gotten more confident in himself, and that was what gave her the courage to not back down. For him. For everyone.

"Shuichi-kun, I need to ask you something."

"Yeah?"

"Come up to the computer room with me, I'm gonna get us all out of here. I need you to help me find the truth. Once and for all." And with a silent nod, he followed her to the computer lab.


	14. Trash Heap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While sifting under the desks of the computer lab, Shuichi and Kaede find a pile of something. After taking it to Miu, they find out that it probably used to be a router. It's the middle of the night...

The light automatically turned on as the two entered the computer lab. It was exactly as Kaede had left it; the only workstation that appeared to have been used recently was the one that she had logged into the day before--or had it been two days ago? Kaede had lost track of the time since she had woken up here; Iruma-chan told her that none of the computers had access to the internet if Kiibo wasn't in the room. The dust had been cleared out of all of the computer's USB ports; Shuichi-kun and Kaito-kun had probably checked their flash drives at the same workstation because the state of the other computers, especially the keyboards, was more similar to that of the average window sill than what anyone would actually want to touch. The computer lab is Suite 699, so it was likely that Toujo-san hadn't reached this room just yet; Kaede had noticed that the school was becoming progressively less dusty as time went on. Her thoughts returned to what had happened the day before...it all felt like it had happened so long ago, come to think of it. But the killing game...her mind always returned to the killing game...that felt like it had happened much more recently, even though it had been over seven months since Kaede had been hanged. Der Flohwaltzer started playing in her head...she forced that wretched tune out of her mind. That damn bear ruined a perfectly good piece...

"So...what are we looking for?" Shuichi-kun prompted, turning to Kaede.

"I was just thinking of trying to access the internet again, but I just remembered that Iruma-san said that we'd need Kiibo in here to do that..." She cupped her chin. _Stupid...How could I have forgotten something so important?_

"Hmm. I was kinda thinking of trying to do that, just to give ourselves a baseline of what's real and what isn't." Shuichi-kun gestured with his finger. "There's gotta be a router or something that can be turned on in here, 'cuz it'd be pretty inefficient if the only internet access was one of the students." he deduced, looking at Kaede. Admittedly, neither of them were great with computers, but after confirming that the router couldn't be on top of any of the tables in the lab, they crawled under the tables and started searching through the dusty technology for the router. Kaede was trying her hardest not to sneeze on all the dust, occasionally jerking her hand back whenever she accidentally touched a cobweb. _This is disgusting._ She and Shuichi-kun went to work in detangling the mess of cords. One would think that an elite facility in the year 2154 wouldn't need cords anymore, but there they were.

"Hey, look at this." Kaede turned to see what Shuichi-kun was holding. "This cord is all frayed." He pointed a finger at the frayed end, turning the cord over in his hand. He flicked it, causing the frayed part to disintigrate, shocking him. "Ah!" Shuichi-kun yelped, sharply withdrawing his hand and dropping the cord, causing dust and God knows what else to poof up in area where the two were crawling.

"Are you okay?!" Kaede exclaimed, choking a little bit on the dust.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little shock." Shuichi-kun replied, trying to shoo the dust away from himself with little success.

"Hmm. This end of the cord must still be plugged in. Let's follow it." Kaede proposed, using her sleeve as an insulator and picking up the frayed cord.

"Yeah. We should be careful, though. We have no idea what else is here, and  Shuichi-kun warned. The two of them continued crawling underneath the lab desks, following the cord. This sometimes required some detangling of the cords, which, considering the dust, was no easy task. The nighttime announcement played during their search, but together, they finally detangled all of the computer cords and followed their frayed cord to a crawlspace, which contained large bundles of cords, many of which were also in various states of disrepair.

"Ack!" Kaede sneezed as she accidentally disturbed the dust in the crawlspace. There was quite a lot of dust here; it should only be six months worth of it, but from the amount of dust under the workstations, it looked like it hadn't been touched in _years_.

"Hey, look!" Shuichi-kun said, pointing to the frayed bundles in the crawlspace. "These cords have less dust on them than the other areas. And actually..." He reached around in the small space where the two of them were. "There's much fewer cobwebs here. Someone before us was probably here more recently." Kaede used her finger to scoop up some of the dust. The layer of dust was much thinner here, not even reaching her first knuckle.

"Yeah, I can actually make out the floor tiles in this area." She rubbed the dust between her fingers. "God...it's so gross under here."

"Yeah...hmm...the dust is thinner here, but it's also darker..." Kaede watched as Shuichi-kun ran his hand along the wall to clear some of the dust off. "This area's scorched." he noted, rubbing the dust in his fingers. "The dust here is laced with ash." Kaede looked up at the bottom of the table and scratched at it. A black substance came off under her fingernail. It's...She felt it with her fingers. This part of the table is pretty much charcoal...Crawling forward, she yelped as she pressed her knee on something sharp. _There's a lot more broken pieces here than in the other areas..._

"Kaede-chan! Are you okay?" Shuichi-kun asked, looking at her. Kaede looked down and examined her knee; a small amount of blood trickled from a cut. She peeled up the a object she had crawled on and examined it; it was a piece of hard plastic. It was fairly rough, and it had definitely been stuck to the floor.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just crawled on this and got a cut. Look at this." She showed the slightly-bloodied peice of sharp black plastic to Shuichi-kun. He took it and examined it. A cobweb trailed off between their hands.

"That's kinda weird...it's a broken piece of something bigger. The edge here looks like it was melted by something." He pointed to one of the edges, which did indeed seem to have been melted at one point. "And look at this--" Shuichi-kun turned it over. "One side is flat, while the other side is kinda rough." A thought occurred to Kaede, and she looked back at the place where the plastic had been stuck to the floor. It looked a little different from the rest of the area, the floor directly under where it had been stuck was a little less scorched and not at all dusty.

"The area it was stuck to is pretty clean, too." She moved her hand to feel around for more clues and sharpely withdrew it when she was shocked by a frayed cord. "I wonder what happened here..." Kaede noticed more and more pieces of stuff, like what appeared to have been an antenna, started gathering some of the non-organic debris that surrounded them. And as if taking a silent cue, Shuichi-kun also began picking up pieces. The two of them climbed out from under the table and piled the debris on the table, continuing to gather it until they'd gotten everything. Most of the plastic pieces they got had been stuck to the floor. Shuichi-kun examined what appeared to be a piece some kind of a hard hard drive.

"What do you think this was?" Kaede asked, looking at it.

"We're definitely gonna have to ask Iruma-chan for more details about what this pile used to be, but I think can safely say that this was once some kind of computer thing." he uttered, cupping his chin and turning the shard around in his other hand. "Hey, Kaede-chan, would you be able to put these pieces into your backpack so we can carry them?" Shuichi-kun asked, glancing at Kaede.

"Absolutely!" she took off her backpack, placed it on the table, and began scooping the broken shards of plastic and metal into her backpack. "We're gonna have to come back to investigate that crawlspace some more." she said, pulling cobwebs off the pieces and shaking dust off the final pieces before putting them in her backpack and closing it. "Come on." she motioned towards the door, dust bunnies, dead bugs, and cobwebs dropping off their clothes and hair as Shuichi-kun followed her.

_I wonder...if I have ever been a person._

Kaede heard someone mumbling from the hallway as she brushed out her wet hair, but couldn't quite make out what they said. Taking a shower and changing her uniform definitely felt better. _God...It took forever to get all that dust and who knows what else out of my hair. I don't think my backpack will ever be the same._ She wraps up the shattered pieces that she and Shuichi-kun found in the computer room in her extra vest, and put it back in her backpack. Her hands felt unclean after handling the mess and she went back to the en suite bathroom to wash her hands. She also wiped off the outside of her backpack with a wet towel; the cleaning returned it to the color it was supposed to be. After throwing the towel in the sink, she closed the door and walked out to try to find Miu-chan. She checked her Monopad and found Miu-chan in the basement, along with a few others. The pieces jangled in her backpack as she set off for the basement.

There was a tension in her chest as she made her way to the basement. I haven't been there since I woke up...I wonder what's going on. Kaede opened the door and walked down the cool, dark stairs, her heavy footsteps echoing through the narrow stairwell. She approached the door at the very bottom and stopped, and looked behind her. No one. She turned back to the door and pulled it open to see her friends standing in the middle of the room with all the beds, arguing about something. Kaede glanced at the beds. All sixteen of them had an occupant who wore the very model of headsets that Kaede wore when she woke up.

 _"The viewers are watching the new season now, run by my darling cubs~"_ Monokuma's words echoed through her head, leaving a bitter taste in her throat as they resonated in her skull. _But how did they get here? How long have they been here?_ She turned to the argument at hand and saw that Harukawa-chan had pinned Tsumugi-chan to the floor by her neck.

"You promised. You said there wouldn't _be_ another killing game. You said that it was over!" Maki-chan's hands tightened around the blue-haired cosplayer's neck, her thumbs pressing into her windpipe. Her lips were turning as blue as her hair. "You are a liar!" Tears dripped from the assassin's eyes.

"Maki-chan, no!" Kaede reacted before she could even think and grabbed the assassin's arm, trying to weaken her grip around Tsumugi-chan's bruised neck. "Please stop! This isn't the answer! Please!" Maki-chan simply flung her away without breaking a sweat, temporarily easing the grip on the otaku's throat before grabbing it again, this time more roughly than before.

"Harukawa-san, please reconsider!" Kiibo pleaded, his voice coming from behind Kaede.

"I can't forgive her. Not after what she did to us. To all of us!" Maki-chan shrieked, causing Tsumugi-chan to finally pass out from air deprivation.

"We already know what happened wasn't completely in her control!" Kaito-kun cried, trying to pull the enraged assassin off of the unconscious girl. Seeing as it was Kaito-kun, who was the only person in the room who'd really treated her like a human being, Maki-chan dropped the cosplayer and spun to face the goatee'd boy, an enraged gleam in her eye.

"Do you really believe that story she told?" she snarled, backing Kaito-kun into a wall and pointing at him. "It's too convenient. Besides," she backed away, shaking her head as though she had second thoughts, and glared down at the unconscious cosplayer. A tear rolled down her cheek. "If it was a fan game made by her, do you really think it would have felt so--so...real? Do you think a simple cosplayer who makes her living off of commissions would have enough money to make something that sophisticated?" the assassin snapped, her voice breaking.

"We don't know what the truth is, but..." Kaito-kun put his hands out to the side, his face darkening in an unsettling way that Kaede had only seen before in Rantaro-kun. "We can't just kill her. We need to be mad at the people who actually did this, not just their stand-in."

"Besides," Hoshi-kun chimed in, probably for the first time during the incident. "Someone like her being alive gives some of the rest of us the hope we need to keep going."

"Huh?" Kaede yelped, turning towards the short tennis player. She noticed some of the others in the room following suit.

"Huh? But she's the one who..." Miu-chan stammered, contorting her face into an odd expression that Kaede thought was probably the face she made when she was confused.

"Despite the fact that she isn't really well liked here, and is probably crushed by the weight of what she's done, she keeps going." He gestured with his cigarette. "Gives people like me a reason to go on."

"Okay." Maki-chan conceded, finally backing away from the girl completely. Rantaro-kun ran over to make sure Tsumugi-chan was okay. "Still don't forgive her, but if it's something like that, then..." the twin-tailed girl fiddled with one of her long, dark pigtails. "I don't want to risk any collateral damage because I don't like someone. I already made that mistake once." Her tone was flat as usual, but Kaede thought she could hear a hint of sadness in her voice. _I wonder if this is about Kaito-kun..._

"That's right!" Kaede affirmed, standing back up. "And...I promised that all of us are getting out of here together. And that means _all_ of us." She walked over to the barely-conscious Tsumugi-chan who had been roused by Rantaro-kun, and the two of them helped her back to her feet. The girl was practically catatonic. _I'm a little mad at her, but...she looks like she feels bad about it, so I'm gonna go easy on her. We're gonna find out the truth, anyway._ As she and Rantaro-kun walked the cosplayer to the infirmary, Kaede thought she saw someone moving out of the corner of her eye. But when she turned back, nobody was there. _I'm probably just seeing things._ After Tsumugi-chan had been safely deposited on the bed in the infirmary, Kaede remembered why she went to the basement in the first place. _Dammit!_ And she sprinted back to the dining hall to go talk to Miu-chan.

"Hey, Miu-chan! Can I have a minute?" she called, waving her hand at the blonde inventor as she ran towards her in the hallway. "I need to show you something!" The pianist screeched to a halt to prevent herself from smashing into the perverted girl, leaving marks on the floor from the soles of her shoes.

"Well, spit it out, Kaedyke!" the crude inventor cackled. Kaede didn't appreciate her language. "What is it? Or are ya just chasing after me for nothing?" _That girl sure does spit a lot..._

"I found something while Shuichi-kun and I were searching the computer room." Kaede explained, grabbing her backpack strap and swinging it in front of her. "It was under the tables."

"Oh, that crusty place? Yeesh, Piano Freak, you sure get into a lot of shit." The inventer cackled. "You two certainly got down and dirty!"

"Yeah. Well, it's a bunch of broken pieces of something, but..." Kaede had a second thought. Maybe she shouldn't put it on the same table they eat at..."Actually, let's go find a room with a table in it. The computer lab was really gross."

"Yeah, that sounds good. And we can be there, just the two of us~" Miu-chan made a gross face. She was really going to have to discuss this girl's speech patterns with her sometime.

Kaede and Miu-chan walked down the hallway, checking multiple rooms before finally just deciding to sit on the floor somewhere. It's not like any floor would ever be as disgusting as the area under the tables in the computer lab.

"So you know, I was trying to sort out that fucking mess of cables in that garbage dump of a computer lab, but it was so gross under the tables that I was choking, so I had to leave. I dunno how Toujo-san does it, man." Miu-chan rambled. "I'd love to get it on down there some time~" Kaede pulled her bundled vest out of her backpack, dropping a few of the plastic pieces back into it. A fair cloud of dust poofed out from her back pack.

"Ew..." The pianist carefully set down the sweater, and after a moment of thought, she decided to carefully pour everything out of her backpack. Miu-chan unwrapped the vest, making a gross face as she did so. _Does she_ have _to do that?_ Kaede swept up some of the pieces from her backpack onto the now-condemned vest that was black with dust. Now that her nose was cleared, she could almost smell mold and burnt things.

"Ick, this thing really is condemned, isn't it?" Miu-chan picked up the shard of what appeared to have been a computer chip, and an antenna. "Looks like this pile of shit was once the router. Ugh, it's ancient!" the inventor exclaimed as she sorted through the pieces some more, trying to make sense of this jumble of mess.

"What's the damage?" Kaede asked, trying to swat away the dust.

"Looks like raped this pile of shit with a flamethrower and then threw dead insects, spiders, jizz, and then a whole-ass rotting corpse on it for good measure." the inventor diagnosed, rearranging some of the pieces. "With shit this ancient, it's almost like doing that to a grandma." Miu-chan actually looked disgusted by this. "Man, who would do this? It doesn't look like much, but this steaming pile of garbage was probably enough to provide internet for the whole building." she continued, turning the antenna around in her had. _I'm_ definitely _gonna have to talk to her about word choice._ Kaede sifted through some of the smaller pieces, trying to find something to identify what this was. Something metal caught her eye. Kaede picked it up and examined it. It had definitely taken considerable damage, but it looked like it survived whatever the hell happened to this thing.

> _T_wa G_ou_ __b_tic__
> 
> _P__e__ed 2_98_
> 
> __o_el: _qw__1_
> 
> _S_r__l: h_V2___dO__AI_Q__

"Miu-chan, look at this." Kaede held out the damaged piece of metal. "It looks like some kind of identifier thing."

"Hmm..." Miu-chan took the warped metal and examined it. "Doesn't take a genius to see that this was probably the panel that had the serial number engraved at some point."

"Wait, the bit with the serial number doesn't have a special name?" Kaede tilted her head.

"Nah, it's just called whatever panel it was located on." The brash inventor shrugged. "Still useful, though. Maybe we can force someone to go through all the school's paperwork to find the registration shit to figure out exactly what the fuck this pile of dust used to be, 'cuz with patents come warranties, which requires registration." Miu-chan set the piece of metal on the table.

"Would you be able to fix this?" Kaede asked, wondering if it was actually repairable. Miu-chan simply cackled.

" _Fix_ it? This pile o' junk? I may be the gorgeous girl genius Miu Iruma, but I'm not the _literal_ Jesus fucking Christ of machines!" she jeered, spitting everywhere. Kaede stepped back, but failed to avoid Miu-chan's airborne saliva. Miu-chan gestured at the pile. "I mean, I can salvage some of this junk to make something new with the same function as the old one, but this bitch ain't ever getting fixed! Most of this pile of shit's been fucking assraped beyond recognition! Not to mention, it's been dragged through the motherfucking dump! Hahaha!" the girl sneered, laughing at her own joke _._ _I'm going to have to...talk. About her word choices..._

"Oh." Kaede looked down at the jumble of wires, which were still coated in God-knows-what. "What should I do with it, then?"

"Bitch! I'll handle it! You just clean the jizz out of that disgusting rat's nest you call a backpack!" The last time Kaede had asked Miu-chan to do something, she literally had to bow to get her to do it. _I wonder if it's a change of heart._ She helped Miu-chan carry the pile of junk to her dorm and then walked to the kitchen to grab something to clean out her backpack. _This thing's probably condemned by now._

"Oh, hello, Kaede-chan!" Angie-chan bubbled, holding her cheeks. Her sunny expression seemed somewhat empty. "Atua is asleep right now, but if you wish to leave a message, I can relay it to him once he awakens!" The cheerful artist flopped her body back and forth, making a metallic sound as she whipped back and forth. How she didn't get a headache from doing that constantly, Kaede didn't have a clue.

> _Kaede was walking through the dormitory building with Angie-chan, blabbering about nothing as they passed the bathhouse. The conversation was on Kaede's end was empty, her mind more occupied with other things._ This girl seems to be worthy. _Suddenly, an emergency alert blared from the cell phone belonging to the Ultimate Artist. The girl pulled the buzzing thing out of the pocket of her smock and froze._
> 
> _"What's happened?" Angie-chan's mouth dropped open as the blood drained from her face, her eyes widening as she stared into the words on the 18 cm x 6 cm screen. Her hands trembled. "What's wrong?" Kaede pressed, her tone similar to that of a concerned teacher._
> 
> _"I-I..." the artist stammered, stuffing her phone back in her pocket. "Atua is telling me to do something real quicksies!" Her voice had never had quivered to this degree. Kaede wondered if why it was quivering so. Fear? Horror? Or was it...despair? Angie-chan ran off, not noticing that her still-blaring cell phone had clattered to the floor in her rush._ _I'm intrigued._ _After checking that the artist was nowhere in sight, the blonde pianist bent down to check the alert that was still causing the usually-cheerful foreigner's cell phone to screech._
> 
> _Emergency Alert_
> 
> _MANDATORY EVACUATION OF BLAOLE IS. CATEGORY 5 SEVERE TYPHOON FORECASTED LANDFALL BLAOLE IS. TWO DAYS_
> 
> Well...this is interesting...

...Kaede blinked. What was that memory...? Whose thoughts were those? She swallowed.

"Huh???" Angie-chan looked at Kaede, eyebrows upturned. "Kaede-chan, is everything alright?" Kaede just blinked at her, still too shocked by the random memory to respond.

"Uh! Sorry, my mind...just went somewhere else, for a moment." She held her other arm and averted her eyes. "It's fine. How are you?" But before the artist could answer, they were interrupted a tall, ghostly figure stumbling blindly between the two girls.

"Agh!" Kaede was knocked to the ground in the unexpected encounter. "Watch where you're..." She looked up at her inadvertent assailant and her cry died in her throat. That glassy stare from the night before continued to haunt her, seeing it again having brought back its full effect. _I'd...better not wake him up._ She pulled out her Monopad. It was 2:30 in the morning. Kaede looked up at Angie-chan, her gaze reflected back to her by the platinum-blonde girl, her eyes wide. The girls shared a rare instant of silent agreement before dashing off to dorm rooms, the abnormally loud scuttling of their footsteps echoing through the common area and down the hall almost completely masking the sound of a metallic object tumbling to the floor. When she had just reached the doorway from the hall, Kaede looked back, just out of curiosity. She whipped around and ran back to her dorm room when she saw the kitchen illuminated by the light of the refrigerator, accompanied by crinkling and the soft clanking of items being shifted around. _Nope._

She thought she saw a fancy knife gleaming in the corner of her eye in the refrigerator light from where it had been tossed in the scuffle.


	15. It Hurts, It Hurts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His heart has long been buried, his soul is empty. He has cried his last tear. The walls erected around his heart have been rebuilt, and now serve as a crypt. The screaming will never stop, the blood stains will never be cleaned, but he has gotten used to it.
> 
> She does not have a home to return to. She clings to the only thing she has left.
> 
> Hatred fills her empty heart that had once been full of love. She has not the strength to fight it any longer.
> 
> He had always wished he did not care what others thought of him until the day came when he realized he no longer could.
> 
> The friend he knew, the girl whose horrific death taught him grief, is gone, replaced by the cold laugh that he by nature can never forget.
> 
> It hurts, it hurts...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> language warning: kaito uses the f-slur

When Shuichi-kun heard the scream, he'd thought it was just the scar that the killing game had branded onto his brain flaring up again until he heard the loud sound of a large group people passing by. The loud sound of footsteps of a group of people running past on a tile floor. And of course, this was a matter of utmost importance; it is to be investigated at once. It made him sick to even think about this, but he was becoming numb to the pain of others, the deaths and the corpses and the blood blurring together into a screaming red smear. What once brought tears and screams and all manner of nightmares now only brought him a vague feeling of revulsion, and the pain caused by such tragedy had been replaced by the callous drive to solve the puzzle. Perhaps this was the mark of a mature detective; his once-innocent heart had hardened such that nothing could plunge him into despair anymore. Ryoma-kun had felt the change in his demeanor, his transformation from the scared apprentice to a hardened detective, all in the matter of a few months. He remembered how much he cried every night, how he once threw up every morning when he woke up from one nightmare to enter a new one, how he'd panicked and froze the morning that Kaede-chan's execution played on the monitors. Perhaps, that was the straw that broke the camel's back and killed his heart, for although he had the same nightmares, the same flashbacks, the same ambient screams, they were no longer so debilitating as before. He'd cried his last tear.

Shuichi threw open the door and joined in the stampede. It was still dark outside; in fact, he had just finished a thorough investigation of the building and had located the elevator before returning to his dorm. The map on his Monopad updated when he'd found it. There were no newly-accessible floors that he'd found, but he did suppose it would be easier to travel between floors now. He quickly caught up to the group, just in time for him to see the source of the scream; Shinguji-kun, wearing only his pajamas, was hopping around on one foot and then fell on his butt. It would have been almost comical, actually, had there not been blood involved.

"What happened?" Kiibo exclaimed, his stance wide and rigid.

"Screaming at this time of night isn't funny, y'know." Ouma-kun chided, mock-gesturing at Shinguji-kun, who was more concerned with his current situation and thus did not respond.

"He's got a knife!" Iruma-san shrieked, taking on a defensive stance.

"You...do know it's in his foot, right...?" Shuichi asked, side-eying Iruma-san a little bit.

"Yeah, but--"

"Ah yes, everyone must know of the infamous foot killer, yes? The man who stabs himself in the foot before shaking his leg at his victims until they die of _laughter_." Shinguji-kun sneered, wincing a little bit as his attempts to shake the knife, a rather decorative knife as Shuichi noticed, out of his foot just made it wiggle painfully. "Iruma-san, please just...just...the world would be much better off if you just...did not open your mouth."

"Hahaha! You owe me ¥500! You owe me ¥500!" Kaito-kun laughed, pointing at the unamused Shinguji-kun.

"Uh--" Shuichi started, before being cut off by Maki-chan.

"Don't bother." The assassin shook her head. "He," she gestured at Kaito-kun. "Made a bet on whether or not this guy sleepwalks."

"That I never actually agreed to, mind." Shinguji-kun clarified. "I accept it, it has been proven to me, I sleepwalk. But there are better ways to convince people of things than setting up painful traps, I must say. And no, I am not giving you any money."

"...Now can someone tell me why that knife was on the floor?" Shuichi asked, his voice filled with great concern.

"What if! Someone was planning a human sacrifice?" Ouma-kun grinned, a childish sparkle in his eyes. "I mean, I don't think you'd use a knife that nice for any old thing like cutting food or something!" Shuichi noticed that Yonaga-san looked slightly pale.

"Well, it's probably Ass Ass Maki's knife! I mean, if you're gonna kill people, might as well do it in style, right?" Iruma-san proposed, not entirely serious in tone.

"I don't think the Ultimate Assassin would be dumb enough to just leave her weapons on the floor...also, who'd she be trying to kill, anyway?" Hoshi-kun pointed out, holding his cigarette. "It's three-thirty in the morning."

"Hey! What Akamatsu-san doing?" Gonta-kun suddenly interjected, pointing at Kaede-chan. The pianist was standing extremely close to Shinguji-kun, who was looking back up at her with an indeterminable expression. Her arms hung limp at her sides as she threw her head back and began laughing.

"I'm tired..." Himiko-chan whined.

"Why is it that, recently, whenever something happens, it's always you?" Toujo-san inquired, looking down sternly at Shinguji-kun, who just muttered something under his breath along the lines of "Do not look at me that way."

"Akamatsu-chan, why are you laughing?" Kaito-kun yelped, his expression extremely comical with his bared teeth and wide, pinpricked eyes, especially in combination with his head being pulled in slightly, like he was a turtle.

"Probably at that face!" Iruma-chan quipped, laughing as if it were the funniest thing in the universe. Shinguji-kun started scooting away from everyone, probably attempting to booty-scoot around the group and possibly all the way to the infirmary. But Kaede-chan blocked his way.

"And where do you think you're going?" she spoke, and the temperature of the room dropped 10 degrees. Shuichi shivered a little bit, shock running down his spine and making the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up. This was the same voice as the one he had remembered encouraging him so many times before, but it was just so cold that it almost felt like it was the voice of someone else.

"Erm..." Yonaga-san finally spoke up. "Can I...have my ritual knife back? It's for blood sacrifices, so I appreciate the sentiment, Shinguji-kun, but...I need to sanctify it before it can actually used for a proper sacrifice since it has touched the floor. Nyahahahaha!" The room fell quiet, besides the sounds made by the heating system kicking in. Shuichi glanced over to Kaede-chan; she stood limply, her head and arms dangling just as they were before the crazed laughter. She stood over Shinguji-kun.

"Kaede-san! Are you okay?" Tenko-chan asked, running over to the girl.

"I guess the killing game kinda got to everyone, huh?" Amami-kun commented, holding the back of his neck.

"Uh, no shit, Sherlock!" quipped Iruma-san. Movement caught Shuichi's eye yet again as Kaede-chan slowly bent down and pulled out the knife, causing blood to ooze out from the anthropologist's sock.

"...Angie-chan. Here's your knife back." Kaede-chan said gently, as she stood back up and held out the knife. The artist took it back carefully, handling it extremely carefully. Himiko-chan looked somewhat relieved...?

"How did this happen?" Kiibo finally sputtered, the robot's blue eyes wide. He held his arms out in panic.

"I am...unsure. I went to sleep, then I woke up to an unbearable pain in my foot for some reason. Then I flailed around rather embarrassingly and fell." The boy fiddled with his collar. "I apologize if I inconvenienced anybody."

"Fucking faggot! What kind of man apologizes so easily?!" Kaito-kun blurted, causing everyone in the group to turn and stare at the aspiring astronaut.

"It's too early in the morning for this shit." Maki-chan grumbled.

"N-no just call people thing like that!" Gonta-kun scolded, mouth agape.

"I kinda ship him and Miu-chan now." Shirogane-san joked. "I think their pairing would be called 'Space Potty,' 'cuz they're both total potty mouths!"

"I CALL PEOPLE WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT!"

"What?!" Shuichi gasped.

"Man, you really _are_ a normie!" Ouma-kun chided teasingly, examining his nails. "Don't even know what shipping is!"

"I think I know a little more than that." Kaede broke in, hoping to change the subject. _Nobody stays on topic for more than five seconds, huh?_

"What do you mean?" Rantaro-kun asked, directing his gaze to Kaede.

She waited until Angie-chan was out of earshot to continue. "Well, about an hour ago, I walked in here because I forgot it was night time and bumped into Angie-chan. She was acting prettu normal, but I kept hearing a weird metallic sound while I was talking to her."

"What?!" Tenko-chan spluttered, flinching dramatically and assuming a defensive stance. Yumeno-chan remained noticeably silent. The floor belonged to Kaede now. She had to keep going, even if people might start accusing Angie-chan of things. Because...she wouldn't. It couldn't be anything like that.

"Let her explain. It's probably nothing bad. I mean, this is Angie-chan we're talkin' 'bout." Kaito-kun reasoned, no longer screaming at Toujo-san while she calmly explained social norms to him.

"Didja forget that cult shit she pulled already or what, space-for-brains?" Miu-chan growled, giving Kaito-kun a thumbs-down.

"Hey! I just realized something! What if stars are farts?" Ouma-kun suddenly exclaimed, leaning into Kaito-kun's face. "Hey! Hey! Hey!"

"That is extremely off-topic..." Kiibo sighed. "You were saying, Akamatsu-san?"

"Oh, yeah." Kaede snapped back to reality and shook her head. "So while we were talking, Shinguji-kun the Nightwalker--"

"It is rude to talk about someone who is right here as if they were not in the room, may I remind you--"

"Anyway, Shinguji-kun bumped into us and knocked us over, then he went into the kitchen." Kaede continued, ignoring the grumpy anthropologist.

"What was that degenerate doing in the kitchen?" Tenko-chan asked accusingly, moving to an offensive stance.

"He...opened the fridge...and started moving things around." Kaede explained, gesturing at the floor. "It was really weird, so we both ran away. But when we ran away, I thought I heard something metal fall on the floor. I guess her knife fell out of her pocket or something."

"What was she doing with a knife?" Kiibo asked, cupping his chin.

"Duhh!!! She thought her Atua told her to murder someone!!!" Ouma-kun declared, throwing his arms out to the side, his feet shoulder width apart.

"That's scary..." Tsumugi-chan whimpered.

"Who'd she be planning to kill, anyway? It's not like the creepy faggot here sleepwalks out here every night, right?" Kaito-kun reasoned.

"And here, we have found a perfect specimen of what they call a closet case." Shinguji-kun quipped matter-of-factly, and was then kicked in the face by Kaito-kun.

"That's not the nicest thing to say about or do to someone who's bleeding on the floor..." Shuichi-kun intervened, holding out his hands like a 'stop' sign.

"I mean, seesawing people isn't nice either, but--"

"OH MY GOD! JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP, SPACE YU-GI-OH! CAN WE JUST STAY ON TOPIC FOR FIVE _FUCKING_ SECONDS?!" Iruma-chan snapped, baring her teeth. "The more you fucks argue about total bullshit, the longer it'll be before I, the gorgeous girl genius Miu Iruma, get to return to my beauty sleep!"

"Right. We need to stay on topic." Kaede affirmed. "I don't know what she was going to do, maybe she was just--"

"Gonna kill all the people who refused to join her cult!" Ouma-kun finished, his expression straight out of a nightmare. The room fell silent as everyone stared at Ouma-kun.

"This isn't another killing game, is it?" Tsumugi-chan squeaked.

"I'd ask you the same question, Mastermind-chama! Nishinishinishi!"

"That's wrong! It's nothing like that!" a childish voice exclaimed. Everyone turned to its owner, the self-proclaimed Ultimate Mage, who was speaking for the first time that night.

"And how do you know that?" Harukawa-san inquired. "Most of us don't even know what kind of people _we_ are, let alone other people."

The room was silent as everyone stared at Yumeno-chan expectantly. "I know...'cuz she said so."

"And you believe what she said because..." Harukawa-san said, continuing her interrogation.

"Because she wasn't saying it to me, or to anyone else here! She was saying it in her room, to Atua, I think!" the red-haired girl protested, balling her hands into fists. The girl pouted, as though she felt it was unlikely that anyone would believe her.

"Huh?" Kaito-kun and Shuichi-kun exclaimed in unison.

"Yumeno-san, may I ask what you heard?" Toujo-san inquired. "It is for her sake and everyone else's that we all know what is going on." The smaller girl pulled her hat in front of her face and shrunk down, turning her entire body away from the others.

"I dunno...if I should say it."

"We won't tell her we know." Kiibo reassured. "But...I think it's important that we can trust each other."

"..." The room stood silent, Yumeno-san folding in on herself more and more for several minutes, the atmosphere growing more and more tense as more people started fidgeting before the girl finally spoke up.

"She said...she wanted to try to do a blood sacrifice to make Atua stronger. From herself." the girl revealed, her voice and huddled posture making her seem smaller than she already was. Her words changed the atmosphere in the room significantly, from that of a tension of mortal terror to that of a more concerned tension.

"She what?!"

"Oh. Good thing she got walked in on, then."

"No want Yonaga-san to hurt herself!"

"This is an interesting turn of events..."

"Well, if that's all it was, then can we go the fuck to sleep now? I'm fucking tired." Iruma-san growled. "I've got shit to do tomorrow, yanno?"

"Nobody was really stopping you..." Kiibo stated.

"Social convention was stopping me, bitch!"

"No offence, but...Since when has social convention stopped you from doing anything?" Shuichi-kun asked, showing a puzzled concern.

"Uh...can everyone leave for a second but Kaede-chan and...and Shinguji-kun? I...I kinda wanna talk to them." Yumeno-san requested, fidgeting with her hat. Her hat and her pajamas was an odd combination, but it's not like anyone really cares when all you're doing is sleeping, Kaede supposed.

A general murmur of consent came from the group before everyone started leaving one by one, the earliness of the morning beginning to make its mark on the students. Yumeno-san watched the hallway, waiting until everyone had gone into their dorm rooms and closed the door. She then turned around, glancing from side to side, before finally standing up straight.

"There's...something I wanted to say to you guys."

"Yeah?" Kaede asked, a little bit more quickly than she'd have liked. She cringed internally.

"Well...you guys...probably saved Angie-chan's life."

"What?"

"Come again?"

"Well...what I said earlier wasn't all I heard. She said she was...she was gonna do a...do an 'Ultimate Sacrifice.' For Atua." Yumeno-san finally revealed, hesitantly. She fidgeted with her pajamas. "I dunno what she meant by that, but I got scared. So I...I went in, and I tried to talk her out of it." The red-haired girl continued to fidget, pulling at her sleeves. "She said...She said she had to, and nothing would I said would change her mind."

"What do you mean by that? Why did she mean by she _had_ to?" Kaede pressed, her eyes widening. Her heart had been siezed by worry.

"She said it was...she said Atua was dying. And she couldn't hear him anymore." The girl suddenly pointed at them. "And don't tell her I told this to either of you!" she insisted. "She said her island was almost gone, and if she didn't do this, then she was worried it'd get underwater completely and He'd die."

"I see..." Kaede and Shinguji-kun muttered in unintentional unison, Kaede's voice more compassionate and Shinguji-kun's voice more intrigued. At least, that's how Kaede felt about it. "So that is why why she clings so insistently to her faith." Shinguji-kun pondered. Kaede couldn't see the gesture he was making because she had made it a point to be facing away from him.

"It's...it's all she has left." Kaede quietly realized aloud. "I wonder how long she remembered this."

"And now that I think about it, it might have been part of why she thought it'd be better to stay in the academy." Yumeno-san commented. "Anyway, now that I've told you this, I have to cast a secrecy spell on the both of you, so you can't tell anybody! Even on accident!" The self-proclaimed mage's demeanour suddenly changed entirely, and she threw up her arms, determination in her eyes.

"Why did you tell us this? I thought you didn't like him." Kaede wondered, gesturing at Shinguji-kun.

"Nyeh!" the small girl pouted. "I told you! 'Cuz you guys probably saved her life!" The girl pulled down the brim of her hat. "Even if I hate him with all my soul and think the world would be a better place if he was dead, I'm still gonna acknowledge if he saved someone's life." Yumeno-san straightened her hat and crossed her arms, furrowing her eyebrows. "Besides...I guess it's penance or something for what you guys did in there." That comment was definitely directed at one more than the other.

"..." Nobody responded to the self-proclaimed mage. Kaede didn't really know how to respond to that. How _do_ you respond to someone basically saying someone else should _die_ to their face, anyway? Even if a part of you agrees, it's still not really nice to say it to someone.

Kaede finally broke the silence. "...Anyway, it's late. I think everyone should go to sleep." She attempted to seem casual, but the strain in her voice was obvious to anyone with ears.

"Nyeh...that's a good plan. I'm tired after casting that secrecy spell. See you tomorrow." And with that, the red-haired girl left the common area in an awkward silence.

"..." Kaede felt the gaze of her classmate boring into the back of her head. It wasn't accusing, it was just a look. The silence was deafening. The blood on the floor was starting to dry out. Kaede looked down at the dried blood on her hands. _It'll take forever to wash this off._ She silently apologized to Toujo-san, who was probably going to be cleaning this up in the morning. If only she'd gone back to pick up the knife, then none of this would have happened. Kaede's neck prickled; he was still watching her intently. The sound of silence blared in her ears, the tension growing by the second. She clenched her fists and trembled before finally turning to face the pathetic figure who sat on the floor behind her. His gaze was unmoving, still directed at her face, focused directly at her eyes.

"What the hell are you looking at?!" she finally snapped, a slight growl in her voice. The boy flinched, but he stared back into her eyes. Come to think of it, she could not for the life of her come up with the reason for the passionate hatred of the long haired boy who sat before her, the hatred that burned from the very bottom of her heart. There were many reasons why he was a detestable human being; his creepiness, the fact he was possibly a serial killer, the pain he'd put Yumeno-san through, his sister complex, his violence and apparent lack of morals, but those reasons combined still could not account for the depth of the hatred she harbored towards him in her heart. She glared at him, trying to get his eyes away from her. But his gaze was unmoving. In her hatred, she had forgotten that he, too, had been a victim of the killing game, and that he had his life and personality rewritten for the amusement of others, just like she had. "Just say something, already!"

"..." The anthropologist's stare did not waver as he slowly stood up, trying his best to put minimal weight on his injured foot. It was quite creepy. _He's just determined to be fucking creepy, huh?_ The dark thoughts were returning to her, but she no longer cared. He limped past her, finally tearing his gaze from her, and when he reached the doorway, he turned back. "So this is who you really are. Interesting. How...ugly." He blinked at her, the intensity draining from his eyes until his gaze was empty. She fought back the urge to stomp his foot, but only because she wasn't wearing shoes, and she'd get blood all over her sock.

"It is interesting, is it not? It truly is the little things that make all the difference. Kukuku...I wonder what beauties you would reveal to me if I were to care." He limped away, probably to the infirmary, where he would probably lay there, so pathetically helpless. Kaede briefly imagined the scene in her mind, and started laughing coldly, her laugh reverberating through the hall. A robot peeked out from a storage closet in the hall. This was not the laugh of the Kaede Akamatsu he'd known.

Nobody got any sleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any time when one's judgement is inhibited is when they show their true nature. I hope it's obvious who each little stanza in the summary is referring to.;;


	16. Regret Message

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying not to get eaten alive by regret.

Shuichi shuffled into the common area. The sun shined high in the sky, illuminating the dome in the bright midday sunlight. It was fairly late in the morning; actually, it was almost noon. He noticed that the common area had been cleaned up, and the pleasant aroma of Toujo-san's cooking momentarily set his heart at peace. It was almost as though nothing had happened the night before; there was no blood, Tenko-san was annoying Himiko-chan as per usual, Toujo-san was doing work even though no one had really asked her for anything, and everyone else hid in their dorms for the most part. But there was one thing that was odd; Kaede-chan was not in the common area, like she usually was. He hadn't eaten breakfast, so he was pretty hungry. Whenever he tried to think about something else, the thought of food would somehow intrude and regain control of his thoughts. _It kinda smells like that lemon cleaning stuff...lemons...lemonade...no, brain, stop it._ He was almost annoyed; he was usually much more focused than this! What was he, a dog? The detective sighed, and walked over and sat on the couch. Nothing had really changed since they day they had all been awakened from the simulation; same couches, same dome, the only thing that was different was the keyboard that sat near the part of the dome that reached the ground.

Shuichi checked the time on his Monopad; it was 11:57. Toujo-san looked like she was almost finished with making lunch.  _How I wish I had a pocket watch._  It was a little strange that nobody but Tenko-chan, Himiko-chan, and Toujo-san was even awake yet. Kiibo always stayed in the common area, even at night time, so his absence was fairly noticeable as well. Come to think of it, Kiibo hadn't been staying in the common area for the past few days. Shuichi hadn't seen him when he peered off the balcony the night before; he usually sat on the couch and read. He remembered that day when Kiibo was acting really weird.  _I wonder if this has anything to do with what happened that day._ Shuichi pulled out his Monopad; Kiibo and Kaede were in the computer lab, and pretty much everyone else was in their room, or had at least left their Monopad in their room. He put the Monopad back in his pocket, accidentally scraping his hand on something hard. Pulling it out, it was his flash drive. The one with a bunch of random school papers on it. He remembered finding erotic fanfiction about his classmates and blushed. But there was something else, as well: a half-written lab write-up for a psychology experiment on cabin fever. It had the introduction, materials, and procedures already written up; all it needed was data. It left him...uneasy, considering the circumstances. When he'd talked to everyone else, the only other people who had unfinished lab write-ups were Kaede-chan and Shinguji-kun, whose write-ups were almost duplicates of his...He didn't like the thought of him being one of the people who got everyone stuck here, but...he had to find the truth. For everyone's sake.

Shuichi wasn't an idiot. He noticed that nobody, as in nobody, was doing well. He didn't tell anyone about the days he woke up screaming. He kept the secrets of the four people he had to talk down from suicide while he was investigating. Twice.  _If you do that, you're just playing into what Monokuma wants, and whatever whoever's behind this wants. You're just condemning two of our friends to another killing game._ Friends. It was difficult to believe that at the beginning of all this, they'd all promised to be friends. Even Kaede-chan was having problems with it, and she was the one who promised that in the first place.  _She's got problems of her own, and she's trying to deal with them all on her own, too._ Shuichi sighed and decided to try to round everyone up for lunch, which meant he was going to have to track everyone down, wake up whoever was still in their room and convince them to eat something. Ironically, considering the killing game, Shuichi was the one who had to wake Kaito-kun up every day to eat. He stood up and walked down the hall, knocking on the same doors he did every day. He knew exactly which rooms would still have occupants at this time, and which people would help him drag everyone to lunch.

"Morning, Shuichi-kun."

"It's noon. Let's go to lunch."

"Meh, I'm not hungry."

"Too bad." It was always strange for Shuichi to be the one to drag Kaito-kun to the dining hall. At least he didn't have to do it literally. By his hair. Like what he had to do with Iruma-chan. Now that he thought about it, she probably didn't make him do that because she was depressed or anything.  _Is this grounds to file a sexual harassment complaint...? Probably._ He made a few more stops, eventually convincing a few people to come out and eat. Of course, most of them just went directly to the dining hall, likely because they saw someone whose presence they found...unpleasant.

"Hey, Shuichi-chan! I have an idea!" Ouma-kun appeared, his purple eyes sparkling with evil plans. Shuichi sighed. Some people never change.

"What is it, Ouma-kun?" The shorter boy held out a pot and a pan, grinning horrifyingly. It definitely didn't take a detective to figure out where this was going. Well, at least he'd found the elevator.

"Just an idea to wake everyone up! I doubt that anyone's actually sleeping, anyway." Shuichi's purple haired classmate grinned, and started following Shuichi, banging pots and pans, screaming "A BODY HAS BEEN DISCOVERED!" at the top of his little lungs. He didn't have the energy to tell him to stop, or the emotional capacity to be upset by it anymore. It made response times quicker, anyway. A lot quicker. And getting upset is probably what Ouma-kun wanted people to do.

"Go commit scooter ankle!" Shirogane-san whined, opening her door slightly and peering through the crack. Ouma-kun started fake crying, but he was definitely not committed to the act, considering that he was still banging the pots and pans together.

"Ouma-kun!" Rantaro-kun scolded.

"YOU'RE ALL SO MEAN!"

"Go commit die!" Iruma-san moaned, still being pulled along by her hair and making a gross expression. Kaede-chan exited her dorm room with pillows over her ears. How she got both of those pillows, the world may never really know. But it didn't really matter, anyway. He'd dealt with the people who were relatively easy to rouse. Now to deal with the harder cases. Specifically, Hoshi-kun.

"Hoshi-kun!" Gonta-kun was already knocking on the door of the Ultimate Tennis Pro when the mob got there. "Wake up, Hoshi-kun! It noon!"

"..." It took but a few seconds of Ouma-kun's pots and pans to get everyone else out, too. And together, they made their way to the dining hall.  _That smile though..._ Shuichi was glad that everyone was up. Tenko-chan, less so.

"Degenerate males, always making a racket!" Tenko shouted, assuming an offensive Neo-Aikido stance as she confronted the group. "It's almost like you enjoy being scolded!"

"...is anyone else super hungry?" Kaito-kun redirected, putting his hand behind his head.

"Didn't you say you weren't hungry?"

"I AM NOW!" The midday sunlight glared into the dome. Shuichi remembered Gonta-kun mentioning that the stars here were the same ones that he recognized. He also remembered walking in on the crying session that happened a couple weeks ago between Gonta-kun, Ouma-kun, and Iruma-chan. Iruma-chan continued to make weird comments as he dragged her on the floor by her hair. He was about six seconds away from just dropping her, but she'd...probably make even more inappropriate comments if he did that. He decided to set her head down gently, which triggered the least horrible possible response from the girl. Shuichi glanced to the dining table; Kaede-chan, Shinguji-kun, Yonaga-san, Maki-chan, and Himiko-chan looked ready to spontaneously combust from the sheer racket that Ouma-kun was making. The memories probably weren't helping, either.

"Yeesh, if you wanted to put me down, you coulda just said so, Shithara!"

"Good morning, everyone." Toujo-san's gaze was sharp, her face aggressively emotionless. But her eyes said all that needed to be said. She inhaled and continued. "I have made a tripe hotpot for lunch, as well as some rice balls for anyone who would prefer something lighter. And for those of you who would prefer a Western-style luncheon, I have made pasta that, for the record, does not taste like eating your dead grandmother's birthday cake." A few people chuckled at her reference.  _I need to remember that jokes are just how some people deal with the pain. If it keeps people from hanging themselves, it's fine._

"Wow, Kirumi-chan!" Yonaga-san gushed. "You really thought of everything!" Toujo-san bowed.

"I am honored to serve you." Everyone else sat down and began eating, several people standing up as soon as Ouma-kun sat down. Shuichi chuckled a little bit; most of the people who did that were doing it in good spirit.

"Bitch I'm hungry!" Iruma-san shouted, spitting everywhere. "Put out the food already!" Lunch went by pretty much uneventfully, all things considered. Monokuma didn't even try to make anyone cry by playing someone's execution on the monitor today.  _It was just yesterday, but I guess we're going to have to be wary for that now._  The food smelled and tasted amazing, and not just because Shuichi hadn't eaten since last night. Kaito-kun ensured that there would be zero waste, as always, and Kaede-chan was recovering a little bit from the day before. He did notice that a couple people were acting a little warily around Maki-chan. He wondered why in between sips of tea. He did remember that a bunch of people went to the basement at some point...actually, he should check that. He finished his food and got up.

"Hey! Shuichi-kun! Where are you going?" Kaito-kun shouted, waving his arm at Shuichi.

"Just going to the basement. I remember a bunch of you guys went down there yesterday and--"

"You're not gonna like what's down there." Shirogane-san interrupted, her glasses reflecting the sunlight ominously as she pushed them up on her face. It almost concealed the fact her face was a little pale. "Just...let us tell you about it. Seeing it for yourself...it'll be too much. It was for us, anyway..." She looked away, her glasses still ominously reflective. She'd hardly touched her food.

"What do you mean by that...?"

"..." There was no response. Even though she was the mastermind, Shuichi thought she seemed a little sick. "They were so... _little_ , Shuichi-kun..."

Shuichi hesitated for a bit, taking a deep breath. He was a detective. It was his job to reveal the truth, no matter how messed up that truth was. "I'll be fine." And with that, he walked down to the basement to be horrified.

Kaede picked at her food.  _What the hell got into me last night? I...I...what happened to me? I was so angry for no reason...and I can't stop thinking about what he said. Did I...did I do that?_  She looked up at her plate. Shinguji-kun looked away from her when their eyes met. Shuichi-kun walked back up from the basement, his face at least six shades paler than it had been when he left.  _That's how I felt, too._ She looked around; everyone kept averting their eyes whenever she met theirs. It was getting annoying. She made to stand up only for Harukawa-san to grab her wrist and stop her.

"Quit picking at your food and eat it, or Kaito-kun will." The assassin pointed at Kaito-kun, who was ravenously devouring anything that nobody had yet claimed. She swore that his jaw had unhinged.

"Kaito-kun, that's--That's too much food." Shuichi-kun commented, having already finished his portion.

"Nonsense! There's no such thing as too much food for Kaito Momota, the Luminary of the Stars!" The astronaut punched his fists together, and kept eating. If it wasn't already in someone's bowl, he was eating it. Shuichi-kun side-eyed his friend. "I missed breakfast, so I've gotta eat double to make up for it!" Kaede chuckled. Despite everything, Kaito-kun was still...Kaito-kun. She remembered what he said about how he found some "disturbing files" in his flash drive. He was definitely making an effort to not go back to being that person. And doing a much better job at it than she was, at that.  _What the hell was that? What the hell is wrong with me?_ She shook it off and continued eating, trying to ignore the fact that nobody would even look at her.  _Remember. Only one person saw the worst of it. Only one person saw the worst of it._ She really hoped that that was true. The first laugh could just be summed up as a psychotic break or something.

_This world is rotten._

_I try so hard to keep you under wraps._

Kaede and Tenko-chan helped Toujo-san to wash the dishes. It was just the considerate thing to do.  _I'm not becoming that person again. She died when the killing game started. I intend to keep her that way._ She wondered why she was starting to become more like the person she used to be.  _Are...are our personalities so incompatible that they can't just combine? Or was she so extreme that this is what the combined form looks like?_ She shook it off, and continued washing the dishes. The smell of citrus helped her clear her head.  _At least Kaito-kun made sure to vacuum all the food._ She thought of how he's probably sick from eating way too much food and chuckled a little bit at his expense.  _Probably better than space food._

As she expected, Kaito-kun was lying down on the couch, looking a little sick from, to no one's surprise, overeating. Way overeating. Shuichi-kun and Harukawa-san were with him, neither of them appearing to feel too sorry for him.  _You must live with your mistakes._ But, breakfast that morning was really good, so Kaede couldn't exactly blame him for eating...well, everything. And force-fed the people picking at their food with whatever he couldn't eat. Kaito-kun had returned in full force; it was actually quite terrifying. It seemed that all he needed was food to return him to full Kaito-ness. Kaede took a sip from a glass of water, the cool taste of the water clearing her skin and replenishing her metaphorical crops. She looked around; most people had already gone back to hide in their dorm rooms. That would not do. An idea floated into her head; yes, it was perfect.

"Hey, Angie-chan." Kaede tapped the artist lightly on the shoulder.

"Yes?" The girl spun around and flopped her body to one side, as she always did. "Do you wish to speak with Atua, Kaede? Because I think He needs to rest for a while. He is recovering from something big."

"Not that, but--"

"Then what is it?" Angie-chan asked.

"I think we should do something just to...you know, cheer people up."

Angie-chan's eyes opened up. "Ooh, Angie thinks that would be a great idea! Uh...what is your plan?"

"Ok, so you know how everyone kinda perked up when I played the piano that day? Well..."

* * *

_I know it...a despair that makes you wish you were dead, and want to put everyone else out of their misery._

_You say you remember what the outside world, the real one, is like. In the other world, it was Hell inside, and Hell outside. The real world is Hell, too. There is no place in this world that is not Hell now. Everywhere you go, it is Hell. A nightmare that only gets worse when you wake up. I hear you crying every night. I hear you wishing you were dead. Wishing that they didn't resuscitate you when your heart gave out from the pain of dying in there. Wishing you never existed. Eternal fire and brimstone would be better than this, you said. At least you can know there are no innocents in that Hell. You can know what you did wrong. You think your death would benefit everyone, not thinking of what it'd do to them to see your broken body splattered on the floor. What they've been through. The pain of believing you are completely powerless is enough to break someone completely, isn't it? But here, there has to be a way out, and it's not death. It's still Earth. I recognize the stars. You say everyone is dead, out there. That you have nobody, here or there or anywhere, and you never did. You say it in your sleep. I shouldn't have said those things to you. I shouldn't have told you to die. I'm sorry. But I know "sorry" won't make the hurt go away. The others are like this, too. Some people don't even get out of bed anymore. You're not alone. You don't have to cry alone. You can cry on someone or something._

Kaito lay down on the couch, his hands behind his head. One month without that coughing. He smiled. Hell yeah. He realized something and sat up sharply, the autumn sunset reflecting from his hair, causing it to appear a nicer purple than it had been. He ran his hand through his hair to get it out of his eyes; he gave up on his usual style when he, uh, ran out of hair gel. It was getting long. He realized that they couldn't have been in the simulator for the entire damn semester; that simulation only went on for like, two weeks, max. What the fuck happened to the other, like, three and a half months? But all the last edited dates on his files showed that he hadn't edited anything since May. God, that computer lab was disgusting. He was lucky to have his own personal laptop. No internet access, but it was enough to check the ages of the files, and Kiibo was running realtime. A darker thought occurred to him.

_How many fucking times did we go through that fucking game?_

Kaito shook his head, trying to get the thought out of his head. It was confusing enough, having two different versions of his life running through his mind. He didn't want to think about having eight or more other Kaitos running around in his head; the crazy axe murderer Kaito that kept popping up when he wasn't wanted was enough.  _At least I can get him to shut the fuck up before he does any damage. All the damage done is my damage._ He chuckled to himself victoriously, pumping his fist in the air. He was pretty much alone, everyone else but Toujo-san having left to do...something. Probably to lie down in their dorms and try not to have panic attacks. No sleep has been happening for a while; getting any sleep at all for more than three nights a week was progress, and forget about restful sleep. It was almost dinner, and Toujo-san was preparing something for it, as always.  _It's probably how she deals with all this._ Everyone had their way to cope. Some people did it by attempting to sleep, some became absorbed in video games, a couple people joked about it, and Toujo-san became even more of a workoholic than she already was.  _I mean, if it keeps you from fucking ending it all, who's to judge you?_ He decided to sit back down when he realized that he'd stood up. Turning behind him, he saw that the dinky keyboard that he and Ouma-kun found in a storage closet a few days ago had been decorated, and rather nicely at that; with silver music notes and paper links. He remembered how everyone was almost happy when Kaede-chan played. Even Hoshi-kun, who still acted like he didn't have anything to live for smiled a bit.

He remembered the talkdown speech Shuichi-kun told him a few nights ago.  _You don't have to do this alone._ That's right. Kaito pondered the semantics of making a Supreme Leader his sidekick. Okay, that was probably a bad idea. That asshole kept screaming "A BODY HAS BEEN DISCOVERED" to get everyone to wake up; he could see which people still had souls left by how they reacted alone. Everyone else's eyes kind of just looked like those of a dead fish. God. _Like all those fucking piranhas. YOU ARE NOT HELPING, BRAIN! SHUT THE FUCK UP. THIS IS WHY I DON'T FUCKING LISTEN TO YOUR ADVICE._ Kaito scowled at himself. He'd been sitting there for like, five minutes, beating back intrusive thoughts with a stick. In fact, he even got up and started hitting himself in the head with a stick.

"Kaito-kun." The astronaut turned around. It was Harumaki! He threw the stick away and beamed at her.

"Hey, Harumaki!" The girl just sighed. She would never get him to stop calling her that. Hard to believe she fell for his stupid ass.

"Why were you hitting youself with a stick?" Harumaki got right to the point, as always. Kaito shook his head and sighed.

"It's nothing, Harumaki." She glared at him, her eyes cutting right through him, right to the very foundation of his being. He couldn't be sure if she liked what she saw there. He didn't know what she saw. But if it was what he thought might be there, he hoped she could forgive him for everything he'd done. A chill ran down his spine.

"Don't lie." Well, this was going to be an awkward conversation.

"Well, I, uhhhhhhhhhhh..." Kaito's eyes moved from side to side, his posture changing rapidly as he searched for a good explanation. He finally bowed over in defeat, his ungelled hair flopping at the assassin. "There's another me in here who won't shut up and I have to beat him back with a stick."

"So you hit yourself...because of intrusive thoughts?" Maki-chan raised her eyebrow, her gaze still intensely boring a tunnel right through his soul. Her eyes went right through his core and came out the other side. "God, Kaito-kun. You're a disaster."

"Oh, and you have a better way to get those thoughts out of my head?" Kaito remarked, rolling his eyes.

"Literally anything else." she huffed, before turning and walking away, sighing and shaking her head. Her footsteps echoed as she stepped down the hall. Kaito sighed, and shook his head. _For fuck's sake._ He shook bad thoughts out of his head and decided to go eat dinner. If his classmates didn't come to eat, that was their problem now. He couldn't deal with their problems on top of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :3 please leave comments they validate me


	17. A Sleepless Concern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaede is still fighting against her old self, and hasn't slept at all. During breakfast, Monokuma decides to play another cruel trick on them. The target is Kirumi Toujo, the Ultimate Maid. It's the little things that make all the difference, isn't it?

_You should just put them all out of their misery. They'd be better off dead. They're already trying to make themselves that way._

_No, brain. Shut up. I'm not doing that._

_You're just saying that because I'm right and you know it._

_That's wrong. Their lives aren't always going to be miserable._

_So you're going to selfishly prolong their suffering, just_ _so you don't have to be the one to kill them? They've suffered enough already. This is a mercy kill._

_Don't be like that. There is a chance we can all live._

_Barely._

_If there's even a fraction of chance that we can all live, I'm going to take it._

_Suit yourself. Don't come crying to me when they end it themselves._

_Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. You're wrong._

_I've existed longer. I know this world better. The world you know is the world of 50 years ago. A lot can change in 50 years. I know what's best in this world._

_Shut up. Shut up. You're not me. This isn't who I am. Shut up._

_I am you. We are one and the same._

_If you were me, then you'd understand. If the world was good 50 years ago, it can become good again._

_That is some faith in humanity right there, Kaede. I'm shocked that I was ever capable of such a thing._

_Quit saying you care when you find other people's pain funny._

_It was a pity laugh._

Kaede lay awake in her dorm room, tears welling up in her eyes as an imaginary fight scene played in her mind between two identical girls. Kaede Akamatsu, Ultimate Pianist of 2154 vs. Kaede Akamatsu, Ultimate Pianist of 2101. Both were one and the same person, the only difference being their views of the world. And that was what terrified Kaede most of all. Something was becoming increasingly apparent as her memories returned that 'that girl' was right. The voice of 'that girl' was just a product of her memories, meaning that the two of them were ultimately the same person. _I wonder how many of us were really changed as people._ Give a person a loving family, and it changes their entire worldview. Give a person a family that pressured them immensely, who called them crazy and sent off their twin to god-knows-where, and well...you get who she was. Give a person memories of the two alternate lives, and...this is what happens.

_I don't want to be this person. I don't want to be this person. I can't be this person._

"God..." She turned over in her bed, holding the pillow against her face. She didn't want to check the time; she knew it was late o' clock. Or early o' clock, depending on how long she'd been up. And because of her refusal to check the time, the distinction between the two was ambiguous. Curiosity ate at her, the digital clock seeming to be calling to her. _Turn around and see me. Check on me, you know you want to._ The sense of foreboding finally overcame her and she whipped her head out from behind the pillow. 7. In the fucking morning. Already? Fuck. It was probably quite bright outside by this time; her curtains must have obscured most of it. _Well, there goes any chance I have of actually sleeping._ Kaede sat up and rubbed her eyes, yawning. The sheets of the bed called to her. _Sleeping now is going to mess up my sleep schedule. But...I'm so...tired...no! I'm going to go play the piano!_ She bit the bullet and swung her legs out of the bed, kicking to free them from their bedsheet cocoon. God damn it. The sheets really seemed to want her to stay in bed as their tentacles wrapped around her very mortal soul, trying to pull her back into the bed. _So_ now _I'm tired. Thanks._ Kaede walked over to the closet and pulled out one of her many identical uniforms. It was then it dawned on her that the facility where they were imprisoned probably wasn't the academy. _So that's why the computers are so...ew. I heard something about government technology needing an update, but...damn. Wait, where's all this shit about the government coming from? This is probably some yakuza behind this, not the government! That's some conspiracy theorist bullshit!_ She shook her head. _I feel like I'm missing a step...part of me definitely feels like it's the government. God...I'm turning into how Shuichi-kun used to be._ Kaede chuckled a little bit at a memory of Shuichi-kun explaining how the government orchestrated WWIII and The Second Tragedy, and how they somehow had something to gain from the massively rising sea level while brushing her hair. She was suprised he didn't bring up the Illuminati, too. Saihara the Gray was a conspiracy theorist nutjob; she supposed that being an investigative genius kind of just does that to you. At least Saihara the White was...a normal fucking person. _No...Tsumugi-chan's influencing me!_ She stuffed her feet into her shoes and opened the door.

_RING RING!_

Kaede's alarm clock was telling her it was eight. Did...did it really take her an hour to get ready? Apparently. She bonked the annoying clock and strode out the door and started knocking, trying to look as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as one possibly could while running on exactly zero sleep. Which was not very, but she was still trying. _Sleep is for the weak._ She knocked on Angie-chan's door, but then heard the usually-cheerful girl's voice down the hall.

"But, but! Kokichi-kun, I told you! Nobody wants to hear your theories about the government at this time in the morning, especially when I don't think anyone got any sleep at all!"

"But it makes perfect sense, right? Right? Right?" _So he's returned, except in purple._ Kaede smacked her face with her palm. _At lEast iT's nOT thE GoBbERment._ She shook her head. Time to wake up Kait--

"OF COURSE IT'S NOT THE GOVERNMENT, DUMBASS! WHY THE FUCK WOULD THEY DO SOMETHING LIKE A KILLING GAME?!"

"Well, there was Unit 731, where they did wors--"

"SHUT UP! THAT WAS THE PAST!" Well, that was two more people who wouldn't need to be woken up. Of course, one of those two didn't even need to sleep in the first place, but...still. Next door. Kaede knocked Miu-chan's door. Then, she heard Miu-chan shouting...something about fucking. _Well, she's awake. I wonder if she's okay...even though she overshares, she never really talks about herself._ Tenko-chan was already on the "Wake up Himiko-chan" brigade, much to the red-haired girl's chagrin, and Gonta-kun was being too pure for even Hoshi-kun to turn down. When she talked to him, it was obvious that he hadn't slept either, but "gentlemen attend to others above themselves." Harukawa-chan was probably either already awake, or had managed to fall asleep through all of the sudden noise. Kaede determined it to be the latter when she saw the assassin being talked into leaving her room by Gonta-kun. _He's too fucking pure for this world._ Only the goodest of boys could possibly get Harukawa-chan to do things without annoying her to death.

Kaede then knocked on Shuichi-kun's door. There was silence. The cosplayer was sneaking out of her room to avoid everyone, which failed when Rantaro-kun accosted her and started chatting. But it was not a particularly unhappy failure. Shuichi-kun opened the door.

"Oh, hi, Kaede-chan!" A shadow fell across his black eyes upon seeing Kaede. She choked back a gasp, desperately hoping that he didn't notice what she noticed in him. Something...different. As though he knew something horrible about her, but just...didn't want to say it to her. Didn't want to believe it was true. The black-clad detective posture was apprehensive.

"Hey, Shuichi-kun! How'd you sleep?" Kaede regretted that question as soon as it left her mouth. _He p_ _robably didn't, you stupid idiot!_

"Well, to be honest...not really." the boy detective answered, sighing a little bit. Behind her echoed the irregular footfalls of someone limping. Unless something had happened that she wasn't aware of, there was only one person that it could be. Shuichi-kun peered over Kaede's shoulder at the limper with wary eyes; his eyes having an alertness to them, coupled with what seemed to almost be a look of relief.

"Gyah!" Kaede spun around to face her stalker, the ever-creepy "Ultimate Ant." But when their eyes met, the lanky boy averted his and skittered off. "Uh...okay. Then. Let's all go to breakfast...?"

"Yeah, that sounds good." Shuichi-kun replied, biting his cheek, his response tumbling out a little bit too quickly. _He looks nervous about something._ She decided to try not to think about it too much as the two of them headed to the common area. It was a chaotic mess, as always was the case with this class. At least nobody had been thrown. Yet. Kaede rapped her knuckles on the wooden table. She'd heard it was good luck. The person who'd designed this area had no sense of coherency whatsoever; the kitchen and dining hall seemed to have come out of a Sherlock Holmes novel, while the common area appeared to be fairly modern. Kaito-kun started cheering on Shuichi-kun while Toujo-san was preparing breakfast.

"EYYYYYY, SHUICHI-CHAN! We were just talking about you, actually!" Ouma-kun giggled, smiling mischievously. "Nishinishi, I got compared to how you apparently were by my beloved Kiiboy-chan! Isn't that mean?" The boy started sobbing obnoxiously. _How does he have that much control over his tear ducts?!_ Kiibo just raised his hands defensively as Shuichi-kun looked over at him.

"S-sorry! I just--" the distressed robot started, before being cut off by Ouma-kun.

"So! So! So! Where's your tinfoil hat?" the obnoxiously purple boy's expression changed in a snap, with nothing to indicate that he'd just been crying but a second earlier. "Is your hat lined with tinfoil? Huh? Huh? Huh?"

"Well, actually, tinfoil actually amplifies government brainwashing waves." Kaede started, teasing Shuichi-kun a little bit. "Get on our level, Ouma-kun." The pianist smiled deviously.

"Kaed--"

"I swear to God, if I hear one more word about the _fucking_ government--" Miu-chan shouted crudely, gesturing at the small group.

"But it's true!" Tsumugi-chan interjected, raising a finger. "I did research on this once for a cosplay!"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, ALL OF YOU!" Kaito-kun shouted, his face pale with horror. Unfortunately for the aspiring astronaut, his pleas only raised the noise levels in the room.

"What's this about the government?"

"Is there something Tenko's missing?"

 

" _Who_ wore a tinfoil hat?"

"Ooh! Ooh! What if **they're** in league with the Yakuza?"

"Nyeh? Didn't Ryoma-kun kill the Yakuza?"

"There's more than one Yakuza syndicate, idiot."

The conversation was beginning to make Kaede's head spin with all the different directions it was going in.

"That sounds like a pain..."

"I swear to god, Yumeno, if you don't--"

"How dare you refer to Himiko-chan without an honorific?! Degenerate Male!" And it was at that moment that Kaito-kun was thrown.

"Ah! No should throw people! But...no should not use honorific for lady, either! Or anyone!"

"Sorry..."

"Actually, the government doing **this** does make a lot of sense, if you think about it..."

"Ah! Shuichi-kun, please don't tell me you're a conspiracy theorist!"

"You mean again? Cuz this is how Shuichi-chan used to be! Nishinishi!"

"I need to take a shit!"

"Please refrain from mentioning your bowel movements. Ever."

"Then...go to the bathroom."

"B-but I think the bathroom is haunted! What if a ghost watches me shit?!"

"THE BATHROOM IS _NOT_ HAUNTED, BECAUSE **GHOSTS DON'T EXIST**!"

"Well, this definitely took a turn..."

"Yeah..."

"Uh...Where exactly is this going...?"

"Nowhere good."

"I mean, wouldn't a ghost think it's kinda hot to watch someone like me shitting? I mean, if I were a ghost, I'd like seeing something long coming out of my asshole--"

"GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! HOW DARE YOU INFECT MY MIND WITH SUCH IMAGES?! APOLOGIZE!"

"I mean, it might be the government in the bathroom! Lot'sa politicians are huge pervs--"

"Kokichi-kun, that's not helping."

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, ALL OF YOU!"

Kaede finally snapped, causing everyone in the room to spin to face her. "God! What is wrong with you guys?"

"...I have to--"

"JUST GO TO THE BATHROOM ALREADY!" Himiko-chan snarled, causing the inventor to finally slink off to the bathroom. Kaede looked over to Toujo-san, who looked about ready to burst into tears. Absolutely nobody would blame her.

"...breakfast is ready." The room was silent, except for the eventual sound of a toilet flushing, and Miu-chan's returning footsteps.

"...let's eat?" Kaede finally volunteered, holding her sleeve awkwardly. "I get that everyone's tired, but..."

"Somebody kill me..." Ryoma-kun muttered, as everyone awkwardly sat down at the table. Everyone had started eating when loud music blared from the speakers of the monitors, which began playing an execution. Toujo-san stood in place, but her stoic expression had grown considerably more pale. Kaede wondered how Toujo-san was able to deal with this without screaming when a small amount of blood trickled from the corner of the maid's mouth, which was quickly wiped away with a hand gloved in black. She'd bitten the inside of her cheek. The room was silent once again, everyone staring at their plates, having suddenly lost their appetites. Even the Supreme Leader was at a loss. Kaede was among the few people who didn't appear to have had bad memories resurface when the footage was played.

"Toujo-san, are you okay?" Shuichi-kun finally asked, standing up and walking over to the maid after several seconds of silence.

"I do appreciate your concern, but it is my duty as a maid to be more concerned with your welfare." she deflected, holding a hand out to Shuichi-kun. "I have noticed you are quite pale. Perhaps I shall cover up the monitors, just in case there is a next time." The maid curtsied with a smile and began attending to the others to make sure they were alright. It was obvious that she wasn't, despite how she asserted that she was.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm just glad **he** didn't play the audio of that one." Kiibo shuddered, which should have been impossible for a robot, but the more you know.

"Toujo-san! We're all more worried about you and you know it! Please!" Tenko-chan stood up and blocked Toujo-san's path. "That...that was so awful! I'm...let me--let _us_ help you!" The maid immediately shook her head, just as her soul had been shaken.

"It is fine, I assure you. It is my duty as a maid--" She was interrupted by Tenko-chan's embrace.

"Stop it." The aikido master flipped her onto her back. "See? You're holding a lot back, like a soda bottle that's been shaken up with a mint in it! It's not good for you! So please!" she begged, now wrapping her arms around the Ultimate Maid. "I...I request...that you let us help you!"

"Uh..." Kaede started, before being silenced by Angie-chan.

"Shh. It's how she learns a person's emotional state." It was silent for a moment, as Tenko-chan helped restore Toujo-san, who Kaede now noticed was shaking, to her feet. _Well, I'm not gonna leave her alone like this! Not when she helped me when I was down!_ Kaede ran over to the maid, and tried to help Tenko-chan guide her to a chair.

"You should sit down." The maid stood up suddenly, straightening her back and clenching her fists. Her eyes were closed as she seemed to think for a little bit. Toujo-san covered her mouth with her hand. She seemed deep in thought.

"I am afraid that I cannot fulfill that request." And with that, she returned to the kitchen and began washing dishes. The room was silent for several minutes as people tried to finish their breakfast for Toujo-san's sake. Kaede choked down her eggs and toast, even though she felt like she was on the verge of puking. It was for Toujo-san. She'd want them to eat. When she finished, she carried her plate to the kitchen, where she saw Toujo-san washing the dishes.

"I'm going to put this here so you don't have to carry so many plates in here, okay." There was no response. Kaede neatly set her plate next to the sink, and was about to leave when she heard her name.

"Akamatsu-san." Kaede spun around to face the only other person in the room. Toujo-san.

"Thank you." she said. She turned from her work to look at Kaede. "That was very kind." Kaede smiled back, a warm feeling blooming within her chest as she started gathering everyone else's dishes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OwO??? Is this a ship? Ugh, I'm bad at writing anything that's not humorous. Which is why there's random humor in places.


	18. Time Limit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monokuma stopped the attempts to obscure the monitors that were playing people's executions. Kirumi is hiding something. And Monokuma's announcement makes Kaede realize how little time they really have.

After washing the dishes, Kaede and Kirumi-chan went to work on covering the monitors. It wouldn't help much with the audio, but it would prevent people from being able to see the image. The two of them started by cutting out some squares of cardboard after measuring the dimensions of the monitors after counting them so that they could set up the cardboard, and made sure to prioritize public areas and the dorm rooms of the blackeneds should the amount of cardboard be insufficient. They found plenty of cardboard. But when it came time to attach the cardboard to the monitors, a certain despised someone decided to make an appearance.

"Hey!" grumped the high, squeaky voice of that damn robotic bear. "You're not allowed to obstruct the monitors!" He knocked the cardboard out of Kirumi-chan's hand and put a spear through it, scraping the maid's cheek and causing it to drip blood. "New rule! No obstructing the monitors!"

"Why the hell do you force us to watch that?!" Kaede barked, pointing at the bear.

"Upupu...you guys really aren't all that sentimental, huh? And after all the work that went into those, videos, too!" The bear pouted. "You bastards, I do announcements on those! You can't block 'em!" And then he was gone, just as quickly as he had appeared. Kaede heard the beep of her Monopad updating. Damn it.

> _#15:_ _No student may obscure the monitors or otherwise tamper with them in any way, shape, or form._

And as usual, the punishment for breaking the new rule would be...immediate death. _Executed for cardboard crimes_. Kaede noticed that an amendment had been made to the nighttime rule since she had last checked.

> _#14b: If a student is not conscious while they are violating a rule, they will not be punished._
> 
> _#14c: If a student enters a closed area while unconscious, but regains consciousness within the closed area, the student will have one minute to exit the area or they will be punished._

Kaede scratched her head. _That update must have happened while I was asleep...guess that eliminates a pretty quick way to kill someone, ha ha._ She shook her head and cursed herself for the fact her mind even went there, and put her Monopad away. She turned to face Kirumi-chan, who was looking back at her with furrowed eyebrows and biting on her thumb, before returning to her normal, stoic expression, the crease between her eyebrows the only indication of her true emotion. Behind her eyes, Kaede thought she could see a withdrawn despair.

"Such is unfortunate, but I suppose it cannot be helped at this point. I shall have to make do with caring for the others when the time comes." She sighed, and looked up at Kaede. "Which brings me to what I wish to speak about next: How have you been, Akamatsu-san?" the maid asked, ever polite. Her eyes seemed to soften when she addressed Kaede.

"I could ask you the same question." Kaede replied, smiling a little bit. "You're your own person, and it was yours that was played right now, not mine." She stepped forward a little bit. "It's okay. You can tell me." she assured warmly, holding out a hand to her friend. "You're my friend." Kirumi-chan seemed pensive. There was a drawn-out silence where she seemed to be making up her mind, sowing the seeds of hope into Kaede's heart, nurtured by the warmth that enveloped her chest and persisted through Monokuma's interruption.

"It is the duty of a maid to serve." Kaede averted her eyes as the field of her heart was quietly razed by the maid's response, the budding hope in her chest withering away and disintigrating. The warmth disappeared, leaving only an empty cask in its place. "Please, tell me if you have any requests." She was silent. Kaede chided herself for having such hopes. _Of course she was gonna respond like that...this was probably the only possible outcome._

"Uh...if that's the case, then...I have a request." Kaede finally said, breaking the silence that had grown heavy with its awkwardness.

"Yes?"

"Make sure you take care of yourself."

* * *

 

"The hell do you mean, 'no more fresh fruit?!'" Kaito-kun shouted, clenching his fist.

"I mean that there is no more fresh fruit, dumbass! You bastards ate it all! Upupupu!" the two-toned bear chuckled. "Oops! I forgot to tell you guys that you've eaten a third of your total food supply!"

"What?!" the astronaut rebuked, taking a defensive stance. "A-already?! How long was that supposed to last?!" Kaede walked into the dining hall to see the astronaut and that damn bear shouting about something. She strode over, unaware that something was very, very wrong.

"What's going on?"

"I'm glad you came! Upupu..." The bear sneered at the two of them. "As you can see, the food here is limited. Just in case you guys were thinking about living here forever."

"We weren't." Kaede quipped.

"Onto the next question! Anyway, the food supply is sufficient for a group this size for 6 months if you were eating only 1500 calories per day. But because you're all greedy pigs, you fucks managed to drain that supply by a third in a damn month! At this rate, you'll be all out of food in like, December!" Kaede's mouth fell open, the floor she was standing on seeming to fall away as her heart hit rock bottom. The bear cackled at in their shocked faces.

"..." The room fell into a momentary shocked silence. The tension could be cut with a knife.

"You did that on purpose!" Kaede finally spat without thinking, the words bursting from her chest in rage. Her fists clenched.

"Upupu...you could have just asked! Or..." The bear dramatically went silent, smiling evilly at the two students. A bundle of nerves writhed in Kaede's abdomen, the struggling intensifying as the silence began ringing in her ears. "You could have watched your whole execution."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter today, but I felt like it'd be more effective like this.


	19. Resource

Shuichi recognized that lifelessness anywhere. A lifelessness that could only be found in those who were still alive. The blank, glazed eyes of someone with nothing left to hope for. And nothing left to lose. The lifelessness that accompanied despair. The lifelessness that could only be seen when one has hit rock bottom. The lifeless, green eyes of the girl who had once been known as Kirumi Toujo stared back at him, her mind ready to recieve his next request, but her heart long gone. This was the look he saw in everyone else, after Kokichi-kun told them the supposed "secret of the outside world." This was the look of how he felt when he had thought that everyone had died for nothing. The heaviness of her steps, her mechanical movements, the listlessness she displayed were all unmistakeable. _Was this...all because of her execution? Did Monokuma...what did he do?_ He remembered how the light in Ryoma-kun's eyes blinked out the second that the monitor finished playing Kirumi-san's execution. He wore the same kilometer gaze as Kirumi-san wore as she stood before him, dusting. Shuichi was going to ask her to make some lemonade with him to try to cheer the others up, to try to rescue the dying light in their eyes, but it felt impolite to ask for such a thing now. Especially considering the fragmented conversation he overheard earlier that day.

> _"...guess I shoulda saved those_ **_extra portions_ ** _as leftovers and not just ate 'em all, huh?"_
> 
> _"..."_
> 
> _"The_ _**food** _ _we have...was only meant to last six months...I think, that means whoever put us here...we can leave after that...we just have to_ **_survive_ ** _...five more months..."_
> 
> _"Kukuku...Starving to death is one way to escape. 'Tis a little extreme for my liking, I must say."_
> 
> _"We've already burnt through a_ _**third** _ _of what we had. We're...gonna have to_ **_ration_ ** _what's left if we want to make it through. And the **asshole** didn"t tell us about that on purpose."_
> 
>  _"If this is all true, then...makes me glad I don't_ **_eat_ ** _..."_
> 
>  _"If it all comes down to it...maybe those of us who can't investigate that well might have to start_ **_taking turns eating_ ** _..."_
> 
> _"I'm just glad...this must mean that there's an end to this after all..."_
> 
> _"We can finally get out of here...I hope..."_

Shuichi was snapped out of his trance by Himiko-chan's voice repeating in his head. _We can finally get out of here. We can finally get out of here. We can finally get out of here._ He didn't know whether or not the home he once knew still existed, and at this point, he was beyond caring. If his home didn't exist anymore, then he could make a new home, because that's what **everyone who died that day** would have wanted. Everyone who died that day died so that someone else would be able to live. Someone they probably didn't even know. _And I'm not letting their_ ** _ultimate sacrifice_** _be in vain._

It was quite curious, actually, how Kaede-chan managed to cling to the light in her eyes, how she managed to fight against her heart turning to ice. A light that had started dimming ever since her execution was played, but nevertheless managed to hang on. He remembered how, when Kaede-chan played the piano for everyone, everyone's eyes lit up, just for one, shining moment, before dimming out again. And that light was gone in the maid who cleaned the computer lab before him.

_Emotional burnout._ The concept continued to echo in his brain since the day it first snuck into his head. _Like a lightbulb._ Kirumi-san was making a lot of progress in the computer lab; it was no wonder that she was an **Ultimate**. The computers were shining, and they were all actually powering up without too much trouble. _She must have cleaned out the insides, too._ The room temperature wasn't increasing when the computers were booting up, at least according to Iruma-chan.

"Hey! Uh...thanks, Toujo-san." Miu-chan threw open the door and saw the newly cleaned lab. "Wow...I was mentally preparing myself for the insides of those computers, but you were just able to...do that!" She tinkered with something in her hands as she babbled. It looked like...a router.

"It is no problem. May I ask what you are making?"

"Oh, this?! Well..." Miu-chan started a vulgar, long-winded spiel that ultimately amounted to how she didn't want to have to harass Kiibo every time she wanted to use the internet because he's busy sometimes, and how she decided to make a router using the disgusting shards Kaede-chan and he'd found in the computer lab. "So all you fuckers need to do is turn it on like this, and then on the computer, it should show up in the connections menu. It's so easy that even Gokuhara-kun could figure it out!" the inventer cackled.

"Oh! That!" Shuichi exclaimed. Even though he ditched his hat a while ago, some of his hair still stood on end as though he had permanent hat hair. Which he supposed wasn't entirely impossible given the amount of time he wore the hat 24/7. _Kaede-chan would definitely comment on that if I ever said it..._ Yeah, she definitely would.

"Let's just flick this baby on..." Click. A green light blinked on the router as it powered up. _I'm not sure what I expected._ "Now we have internet, baby! Hahaha! Now let's see what's out there..." Miu-chan sat in one of the workstations, motioning for Shuichi to do the same. "You're the detective, asshole." Toujo-san left the room to continue her sweep of the building, her actions still robotic and lifeless. Perhaps they were what she felt was giving her purpose. _I wonder if she's okay...I'm gonna ask her later today._ Shuichi turned on a computer; his muscle memory handled the login details. The first thing that struck him as off was that the computer wasn't immediately demanding that he update it when he connected to Iruma-san's Wi-Fi, which was cleverly named "Send Nudes." He opened the internet browser.

The server I.P. address of [googol.com](http://googol.com) could not be detected.

The server I.P. address of [duckduckgoose.com](http://duckduckgoose.com) could not be detected.

The server I.P. address of [bong.com](http://bong.com) could not be detected.

Macrohard. Googol. DuckDuckGoose. FaceSpace. Tweeter. Tomblr. No matter what website he tried, it seemed that none of the servers could be reached. Shuichi heard Miu-chan having the same problem at her computer, letting loose a stream of colorful language as she smacked the computer and checked the router again.

"Stupid bitch! I know this router works!" The blonde inventor smacked the desk by her computer. "There is no fucking way that something made by me, the gorgeous girl genius Miu Iruma could just not motherfucking work, so what the fuck's the deal now?!

"Well...it's not saying there's no internet, so the problem doesn't seem to be on our end." Shuichi supplied, now mashing F5 on GNN to see if they still had their server up. And against all odds, he finally got the home page to load. "Got it! Now...I'm going to check the first article here..." With Miu-chan over his shoulder, Shuichi quickly clicked into the article on the front page, as to take advantage of this short window of time where the servers appeared to be working. And the further he scrolled, the further his heart fell.

There is no home to go back to.


End file.
